


Is it wrong to try to pick up Daedric Mages in a Dungeon?

by EllipticallyOrbitedTeapot



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Altars, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blacksmithing, Blood Magic, Blood and Injury, Blow Jobs, Bondage, Bottom!Sykkuno, Bottom!Technoblade, Breaking and Entering, But like demon tentacles, Canon-Typical Violence, Cheating at Rune Puzzles, Cloak kink, Clothing Kink, Come as Lube, Cuckolding, Dark Magic, DarkMage!Sykkuno, Dungeon, Hot Springs & Onsen, Human Sacrifice, M/M, Masturbation, Mild breeding kink, Mildly Dubious Consent, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Riding, Rune Puzzles, Sacrificial altars, Size Difference, Size Kink, Telepathic Bond, Tentacles, Threesome - M/M/M, Top!Corpse, Top!Technoblade, demon!Corpse, endlessly complicated mage robes, just to set up the porn, king!technoblade, lube as lube, porn with a little plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:07:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 49,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27818752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllipticallyOrbitedTeapot/pseuds/EllipticallyOrbitedTeapot
Summary: “Cruel God wants to watch my heart die, watch me impale myself on unrequited love until I figure out I can’t have you.”The raw confession hangs in the air, out of place in the hearth-warm quiet of Sykkuno’s cluttered bedroom. Even Corpse himself seems out of place, larger than his body. An exiled God, immaculate white horns winding their way out of his skull in a divine crown. Glittering chains falling from his ears and waist like sanctified treasures, precious metals and gemstones made more valuable for their contact with his skin.--Sykkuno is an excessively powerful, excessively reclusive dark mage, happily spending his unnaturally long life crafting demonic superweapons in his dungeon.Technoblade is a tyrannical king searching for a particularly cool, horrifically demonic waraxe, and breaks into Sykkuno's dungeon looking for it.Corpse is a lovesick demon who drops by at the worst possible moment. If only interdimensional portals had doorbells.
Relationships: Corpse Husband (Video Blogging RPF)/Dave | Technoblade, Corpse Husband/Sykkuno (Video Blogging RPF), Sykkuno (Video Blogging RPF)/Dave | Technoblade
Comments: 66
Kudos: 440





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so, this is a mix of a couple different fantasy worlds and some other stuff I made up to make it work. Most of the magic rules and names are borrowed from Skyrim (I'm old T_T).
> 
> Technoblade is mostly canon-compliant with Dream SMP, except I needed him to be King of something, so now Antarctica is temperate, land-locked country.
> 
> Sykkuno is a little different to his OTV SMP character in that he's physically a lot weaker to fit into the super-powerful but can't-hold-a-sword-properly mage dynamic, but otherwise I think the cursed/demonic power tracks.
> 
> Corpse hasn't done any minecraft roleplay of course, so his character is mostly a standard demon with some of his aesthetics thrown in. He shows up about halfway through the second chapter. 
> 
> To be clear, half of this fic is smut that can definitely be read as dubious/coerced consent. All parties are consenting but do not explicitly communicate this.
> 
> This is a fictional transformative work about the characters played by the creators, not the creators themselves.

The deep dark of the cave was quiet.

The only sounds Technoblade could register were of his own making. The hard soles of his boots against the slick basalt, the crackle of his torch and the whisper of his breathing.

Although it almost seemed as if the thuds of his footsteps were doubled, a second beat chasing his own, Technoblade was certain that it was just an echo.

He was also certain that he wasn’t alone.

The other occupant of the cavern wouldn’t be making a single sound as he moved.

Even the dull thrum of Technoblade’s magic was blind to the other's presence. The little reserve of mana that he had bothered to cultivate over the last few years was mostly depleted by now, at the end of his long journey.

It curled drowsily around his ribcage, instinctively protecting his heart. Too weak to reach out.

Technoblade didn’t need a mis-timed footstep or a detection spell to know he wasn’t alone in the dark.

The mouth of this cave had been hidden too well, its position matching Dream’s near-incomprehensible description too well for it to not be what Technoblade had been tearing through deep-jungle for months to find.

The rabbit-hole that would lead him down into the dungeon of a long-forgotten Daedric Mage.

Leaping down another drop in the cave floor, Technoblade drops down heavily, waraxe balanced in his right hand and torch held aloft in the other. Ahead, the cave narrows again, jagged rock walls enclosing on a passage barely wide enough for a carriage.

Given that he is currently stomping through what Dream had described as the equivalent of a Daedric foyer, Technoblade is fucking certain that he isn’t alone.

Even if he had taken the time to recuperate his mana before breaking down the seal at the cavemouth, there wasn’t a chance in hell it would give him even the slightest warning of the Mage’s presence.

However, the comically astronomical disparity between Technoblade’s mana proficiency and that of his adversary cost Technoblade nothing.

Here, in this cave, where he was certain of the Mage’s attention, they were finally on a level playing field of information.

Had they met out in the jungle, Technoblade would have been at a disadvantage.

The possibility of the Mage darting out of the dark undergrowth and hexing Technoblade’s soul out of his body had haunted his sleep for weeks as he hacked his way through the valley.

Technoblade’s entire plan hinged on the assumption that the Mage would let him alone as he trudged around topside, an estimation grounded in Dream ‘s insistance that the Mage was aggressively reclusive.

All he had to do now, after weeks of killing spiders grown fat and monstrous feeding on the cursed energy that rose up through the earth, was venture far enough into the dungeon that he forced a confrontation. One that he was guaranteed to win.

His torch crackles as he tips it forward, casting the pit in front of him in dim orange glow.

Little pools of water gathered in the jagged rock glitter like golden starlight in the dark. The cave floor had narrowed over the last hundred yards to a just few feet wide, the walls closing in and converging onto this pit, on the edge of which stands Technoblade.

He could jump it.

By his torchlight, he can see the narrow ravine continue beyond the pit for at least a few yards, maybe leading further down into the cave system, down into the arcane dungeon carved into the earth.

However, he considers as he chucks his torch down into the pit and calmly watches it sail down, secret entrances to dungeons built into bedrock, by definition, require sudden drops.

His torch is still falling.

The hazy ring of golden light it casts along the sides of the pit grows tighter and tighter until it becomes indistinguishable from the torch itself, shortly before the speck of light is extinguished. Likely by whatever trap awaits him at the bottom.

Spinning the waraxe in his grip, Technoblade takes three steps back from the edge of the pit.

The axe is longer than his own body, guaranteed to get caught on the rock walls if he doesn’t hold it straight, and Technoblade’s only way of surviving this fall requires he fall perfectly straight down and not get shredded by the blade-sharp walls.

With just enough momentum to carry him into the centre of the pit, he steps off into thin air and starts to fall.

His cloak is wound around his left arm, a configuration he is loathe to admit the regularity of, given its propensity to fly up into his face.

The crown, mercifully, is enchanted.

Even after only a few seconds of freefalling, the air rushing over his face and through the joints in his armour has grown hotter and more humid. Reaching behind him with his free hand into his satchel, Technoblade rummages until his fingers close around the edge of a magnesium torch. Yanking it out, he drops his grip on the waraxe to bring the head down into armsreach, striking the torch off the edge of it and squinting against the flaring light.

There should still be a few more seconds of falling before he hits whatever is at the bottom. The humidity is stronger now, the air even hotter, leading him to guess he’s about to meet a subterranean lake.

But, the heat coinciding with the pitch-dark below him make him uneasy.

This deep into the earth, he’s likely surrounded by magma veins, hence the rapidly gathering sweat in the dip of his spine under the layers of leather armour and cloth. However, magma tends to be near-blindingly bright.

And yet, below his dangling feet is still black nothingness.

Black nothingness that almost definitely results from an illusion spell.

Bringing the burning torch up to his face, he flips it over and bites down on the side of the handle, closing his left eye against the light and hoping his hair is tied up well enough that it doesn’t catch fire. With his newly-freed left hand, he clumsily unsheathes the sword at his hip and points it downward, bending his legs up underneath him.

The longsword isn’t meant to be dual-wielded with the waraxe, especially not with a lit torch in his mouth and unwound cape flying out behind him, but the waraxe can’t be flipped around without hitting the rock walls and he’s almost definitely going to need to stab something underneath him.

Technoblade’s awkward weaponry reconfiguration is rewarded when the blackness evaporates in an instant, revealing the burnt-orange haze of far-away magma shining in the too-many-teeth of the very-close leviathan.

The sweet satisfaction of being right is worth being swallowed whole by an ancient fish.

Twisting so that all his limbs slip between the front few rows of teeth, Technoblade stabs the longsword into the beast’s jaw, lodging it between the tightly packed fangs. Free of the rock walls of the pit, the waraxe swings down and buries itself into the leviathan’s maxilla, cleaving skin and teeth to bury itself in the bone.

Letting go of his weapons, Technoblade drops through the widened maw of the beast, falling past the innermost circle of teeth and tearing through the soft palate. Crashing through the leviathan’s esophagus at near terminal velocity, Technoblade eventually comes to a blood- and spit-soaked halt somewhere in the beast’s chest cavity. Covered in shredded Leviathan flesh, yes, but, crucially, not shredded by Leviathan teeth.

The leviathan’s throat immediately opens up in an ungodly shriek. Rotten, bile strewn air bursts through the holes he’s torn the beast’s trachea, rushing over Technoblade’s wet skin. His stomach lurches as the creature writhes in pain, throwing him against the torn walls of its insides and knocking the torch out of his mouth.

Before the overgrown fish can snap its jaw shut, jammed open as it is on the enchanted wood of his axe, or sink back into the water and drown the human in its chest, Technoblade struggles through the piles of torn flesh around him to bury a hand in the pocket strapped to his thigh, pulling out an ender pearl and flinging it upwards.

It sails toward the lava light at the end of the leviathan-tunnel, teleporting him up to the back of the beast’s throat, high enough to grip onto the pommel of his sword. His grip is slick with blood, and his right hand slips over the leather before the left arches over and grasps it. Kicking up off the rows of inner teeth below him, Technoblade launches himself up to grasp the straining wood of his axe.

Yanking the longsword out of the beast’s jaw and hauling himself up by his hold on the axe, Technoblade can just about push himself up and onto the Leviathan’s face. Drenched in bile and blood, he slips down the beast’s skin as it writhes, bringing the sword up above his head in its intended two-handed grip and plunging it down between the Leviathan’s eyes. The creature’s jaw snaps shut, shattering his axe in its teeth, but it’s far too late.

Shoving his weight down into the pommel, Technoblade drives the last third of the sword into the beast’s brain with a triumphant grunt, wrenching out a spray of black blood as the wound widens and the Leviathan flails, collapsing into the dark water.

Shoulders protesting at the sudden spree of Leviathan free-climbing followed by freezing cavewater, Technoblade yanks his sword out of the sinking beast and kicks up off of its face, abandoning his shattered axe.

Breaking the surface, he whips his head around the lava-lit carven as he coughs out cavewater, dragging in shuddering lungfuls of air. While there were no other ancient water-borne evils in his sightline, the only shore he could find lay a good half mile off.

Lava trails down one half of the towering walls of the cavern like a curtain, a thin obsidian semicircle sandwiched between the lake and the slow-moving river of lava collecting at the bottom of the curtain. The river skirts the edges of the cavern until it pools around a small rocky island, bordered half by water and half by lava.

That suspiciously-obvious island was his closest shoreline.

The other half of the cavern, the half not glazed in lava, was cast in inky blackness, its true extent unknown. Disconcertingly, Technoblade finds he's landed in the dead centre of the visible, lava-lit part of the lake.

Somewhere behind him, he hears the groaning shriek of another Leviathan.

Cursing, he sheathes his longsword underwater and reaches behind him for his trident, pulling it up between his shoulder blades as the currents around his body quicken with the beast’s approach. He pushes his will into the magic inside it to launch himself up and out of the water, towards the island.

Nevermind the fucking leviathans, he shouldn’t have sat gaping in the waters of a Daedric Mage’s trap for so long.

Technoblade couldn’t be sure exactly how closely he was being followed, but distractions such as those would grant his enemy the delay in his reflexes they needed. In a straight fight, he would win. Not when he was preoccupied with avoiding getting minced by fish.

Landing heavily on the rock, red cloak waterlogged, Technoblade hastily threads his trident into the holster against his back and unsheathes his longsword.

The island was perfectly flat circle of obsidian, barely a few yards in diameter and entirely devoid of anything resembling a way further down into the dungeon.

After a few seconds of peaceful silence, the only sounds in his ears being his own slight panting and the occasional spitting hiss of lava, Technoblade straightens out of his defensive half-crouch, relaxing the bend of his spine and rising to his full height.

With no incoming attack from the Mage to take advantage of, he will have to press further down into the dungeon.

Unfortunately, that seems to require some kind of puzzle-solving.

Grumbling softly, he crosses over to the lava-bordered half of the island, shifting his sword into a one-handed grip to release the collar of his cloak with the other. The wet fabric falls down to the hot stone with a thump followed by a hiss as the water starts to evaporate. The ties holding his hair in a knot at the base of his skull are the next to go, shoved into a pocket as he shakes his hair free to curl around his shoulders.

While Technoblade isn’t about to take his armour off, nor his squelching boots, if he stands here for long enough the heat will dry him out.

And, he can multitask.

Surveying the smooth obsidian platform for a few long minutes, he completely fails to see any kind of irregularity or indication of something he can interact with. Sighing, he glances around the cavern again but finds no other structure he could likely stand on for more than a few seconds without being burned.

The door had better not be at the bottom of the lake, or require him to dredge through Leviathan guts for a key. Mages could be weird like that.

Reasonably, he was relatively certain that whatever the door was, it could be used more than once, given the number of people Dream claimed had found their way in. Which meant that Technoblade was probably safe from revisiting the inside of a Leviathan. Unless the Mage had a particular flair for the dramatic and an unreasonable amount of free time for someone supposedly creating so many magical superweapons.

Therefore, the platform was his best bet, shortly followed by the lake floor directly below the pit.

Once his hair had dried to just halfway damp, Technoblade starts pacing around the platform, searching for any optical inconsistencies that even his eyes could pick out as an illusion.

Again finding nothing, he resorts to stomping down on the obsidian as he paces up and down the platform, hoping to find some kind of fault line, some hint of the door that could be opened by a mechanism he couldn’t see.

Trying not to imagine what thoughts were flitting though the Mage’s head as he watches a brutish intruder stomp over his front door after being almost swallowed by of one of his demonic pets, Technoblade persisted, meticulously throwing his weight down.

As he makes his way around the outside edge, after stubbornly kicking at the dead-centre of the island to no avail, a kick is finally met with a hollow thud rather than the customary dull thunk.

Quickly scraping his boot to the side, he watches as the smooth obsidian surface glows a soft green before the glow quickly sputters out.

Stomping on it again achieves the same dim result, but tapping his sword against it produces a brighter glow, the faint outline of what he supposes is a rune shining through the black rock.

Stabbing the obsidian with all his strength makes the rune burst into bright, sickly yellow-green. It stays alight this time, smouldering like a forest fire.

Mage-puzzle identified.

Technoblade slowly makes his way around the platform, tapping at the obsidian with the tip of his sword to uncover the remaining runes. Quickly, he realises that stabbing other runes causes the first one to sputter out, suggesting that a sequence is required.

Brute force stabbing and a lot of time is required.

The outside rune seems to be the first one, as stabbing one of the runes on the opposite edge doesn’t result in extinction of the first. After that, the sequence seems to go on in alternating quadrants of the platform, the runes becoming progressively complex and burning brighter as Technoblade makes his way to the centre.

As a primitive part of his brain had hoped, the centre rune is the last one.

Luckily, the sequence doesn’t seem to repeat. Bringing his sword down into the centre rock results in all twenty lit runes to flash rapidly in sequence.

Leaning on his sword, Technoblade’s shoulders burn with the bone-tinging strain of repeatedly stabbing obsidian, but at least he was dry now.

Wisely stepping away from the centre rune as the flashing speeds up, Technoblade crosses over to his cloak. He sweeps it around his shoulders and fastens it once more as the centre of the island starts to disappear, folding inwards in expanding concentric circles and revealing a black pool of thick, tar-like plasma.

It was an absolute black. Not even the bright lava-light could cast a reflection on its bubbling surface. The only way Technoblade could see that the surface wasn’t smooth was the occasional roiling burst of a bubble and explosion of droplets into the air. Otherwise the pool seemed an otherworldly void.

Promising.

Throwing a strip of beef jerky from his ration pack into the tar, he is somewhat reassured when it didn’t burst into demonic fire, sinking slowly but peacefully.

After spending a few minutes debating with himself over whether Dream would describe the way into the dungeon and fail to warn him about the flesh-dissolving pit of demonic tar - arriving at the resolution to astral-project back home and haunt Dream to death if this pit eats him - Technoblade steps over the edge of the pool.

Despite the ostensible viscosity of the plasma, he slips straight through it and out the other side, falling through a vertigo-inducing void for a half-second before being catapulted out.

The force of his ejection carries Technoblade through a few yards of forward rolls, arms curled tight around his head and his sword tucked between his legs. After spinning out, he springs up to his feet with a grunt, finding himself in a narrow hallway carved into dark stone.

Immediately stepping sideways to flatten himself against a wall, Technoblade whips his head back and forth to look up and down the empty space.

Wrought iron torches blazing green fire jut out of the bare, obsidian walls every few yards. To Technoblade’s left, the hallway continues for few hundred feet before hitting a carved staircase. A few feet to his right is a sharp corner where the hallway turns off to run behind him.

The floor is continuous with the walls and low ceiling, the smooth, perfect black of obsidian carved by magic. The space between the dark walls is just wide enough for two people to pass, the corridor evidently designed for the use of a single, skinny Mage.

Technoblade pushes away from the wall and hurries over the to the corner, slamming his back against the stone and raising his sword. He glares, searching for any suggestion of an attack, his narrowed eyes flicking between the two dim paths ahead of him.

He spends a few seconds in a tense silence, trying to hide the ragged edge to his breathing and slight dizziness from his stomach-turning entrance.

Technoblade had expected the disembodied whispers that drift into his mind after the silence.

They swirl around in his head, the sounds coming from everywhere at once.

Technoblade had expected the voices, had expected the weirdness of forced telepathic projection, but the words that the voices speak are a surprise to him.

As is the stuttering.

“Uh-uhm… cou-could you … g-g-go… uhm… please, M-Mister Adventurer, go away... please.”

A few of the circuits in Technoblade’s brain short out.

The shock isn’t enough to halt the entirety of his brain function, but it is enough that he’s left with severely limited computational capacity for several, long seconds.

Every stage of this quest had been well thought-out, every danger considered and every risk calculated.

Technoblade knew from the get-go that he would need to spend weeks stumbling through deep-jungle, cutting down undergrowth and monstrous insects to uncover the cave system that would lead him down into the dungeon. He knew that he would need find his way down into bedrock to find it, and he knew that it would be protected with several layers of Daedric magic and beasts.

At some point during his trespassing, the Mage would be forced to confront him in combat which Technoblade would easily win. Therefore, his adversary would prefer to deter him using illusory tricks before resorting to revealing his physical body and fighting the interloping Technoblade properly.

Soft, delicate whispers stuttering into his head and politely asking him to leave was not an expected stage of the quest.

Dream had made more than a few blustery warnings about the Mage being particularly antisocial. And, now that Technoblade tries to unearth Dream’s conceited monologue from the depths of his repressed memories, he recalls that the Mage had apparently always refused to take on apprentices.

Therefore, despite the overwhelming evidence that he was listening to the Mage’s frightened apprentice, Technoblade had to conclude that he was, in fact, listening to the most powerful Daedric Mage to ever exist.

After almost full minute of silence had elapsed as he recovered his faculties, Technoblade hazards a response.

“Gimme the spine-cleaver and I’ll leave.”

It might not have been the most graceful opener to a negotiation, but, again, Technoblade was at least mostly sure he was speaking to a, very peculiar, auditory illusion rather than the cosmically powerful Mage he had spent months seeking out.

“W-wha-what?” the voice squeaks, abandoning its whispering.

It’s still the same gentle, soothing voice, but cast in a confused hysteria.

“I-I-I don’t… what’s a spine… spine-cleaver?”

“Uh…” Technoblade pauses, trying to recall the description given by the tome bound in human skin he’d stolen from the forbidden section in Phil’s library. “Demonic waraxe? It cleaves spines? Y’know… spine-cleaver?”

His half-assed explanation is followed by a heavy silence.

Now, as far as Technoblade remembers - which is all of the text he could get Tommy to translate from Daedric glyphs - the weapon was literally named ‘Spine-cleaver’, a rare instance of transparency in magical weapon nomenclature which, at the time, Technoblade had greatly appreciated.

“You… Gelgtholath… You want the Gelgtholath?”

Technoblade supposes he wants the ‘Gelgtholath’.

“If it cleaves spines and is an axe, I want it.”

This confirmation is followed by another heavy silence, longer than the first.

Long enough for Technoblade to tighten his grip on his sword and start stalking down the left branch of the hallway.

If the Mage is reluctant to negotiate, then he needs to get further into the dungeon, find something precious to threaten. Since he has absolutely no information about the dungeon’s layout other than Dream exalting how ‘fucking labarinthine’ it was, Technoblade supposes he had better start walking.

“Ha-hang on just a minute, there,” the Mage’s voice rushes, harried by the three steps Technoblade had taken down the hallway.

Technoblade deduces that this direction is a good direction.

“W-wai-wait, okay, how did you even find your way in here? No one led you through the jungle and there’s absolutely no way you read the hidden runes with so little mana in you, it’s impossible.”

Technoblade’s spine straightens, preening silently as he stalks down the dim hallway. The nervousness is bleeding out of the Mage’s voice with each sentence, replaced with a sweet, enthused wonder. It’s still the same bone-warming, soft voice as before, and Technoblade is forced to consider whether the Mage just sounds like that all the time.

“I ripped out jungle until I found a cave.”

The Mage squeaks indignantly, stammering over half-formed words as he puts together a response. Technoblade wonders whether the Mage can control what he transmits or every noise he makes is broadcast.

"But, how did you know to rip out this jungle?”

The hallway splits into a T-junction ahead of Technoblade, a stone staircase to his left and another long corridor, identical to the one behind him, to his right. Craning his head to peer up and over the stone bannister, Technoblade deems upwards to be a counterproductive heading and silently hurries down the sharp steps.

The floor below presents him with nothing but more barren torchlit hallways.

Technoblade flicks his wrist, spinning his sword absently before pulling himself up onto the bannister, jumping quickly down to the flat balustrade at the next landing and down again to the next floor.

Frustrated either with Technoblade’s silence or Technoblade’s rapid progression down through the dungeon, the Mage starts squeaking again.

“Ha-hang on a sec- uh… w-wa- Gods, okay, you must be a friend of Dream’s then, right?”

Technoblade lurches to a halt on the nest balustrade, tilting his head and squinting into the dark gloom of the open room while he considers the words in his head. A smouldering hearth at the opposite wall casts what looks like a disused study in an orange glow.

Technoblade concludes he must be in a forgotten corner of the Mage’s dungeon and continues downwards.

“Uhm- he-hello?” the Mage slips into his head again, and again Technoblade is unnerved by the politeness, the false softness.

“I know Dream,” he states, dropping down from the staircase onto what seems at first to to be a balcony. As he approaches the stone bannister and leans over it, Technoblade realises he is standing on a raised walkway that encircles the uppermost storey of a great hall.

Nightmarish statues tens of feet tall line the length of the hall, lit from below in green firelight and surrounded by shallow rivers of dark blood cut into the obsidian floor in jagged runes.

“Ye-yeah, I figured, uh, could you- uh, maybe not… maybe not go down there?” the pitch of the Mage’s voice climbs as Technoblade hoists himself up onto the handrail of the balcony, leaning out into the void of the hall. He holds himself back by the wrought iron column to his left.

“Give me the Gerulath.”

“Th-the... y-you-you don’t even know its name,” the Mage sobs. “I don’t understand- where did you even hear about it- wh-what do you want it for?”

Technoblade leans further out into the green-hazed air of the hall, squinting at what he figures is the face of the Daedric statue directly opposite him. There are… orifices?… littered around its inhuman head, all spewing a steady stream of thick black blood. The rivulets of blood cascade over tentacles and folded feather-wings to pool at the statue’s… feet?

“Cleaving spines.”

“It-it-it’s one of the nine Ivathlan! It liquifies spines! Paralyses with a single hit! You could one-shot anything up to mid-tier Gods!”

Technoblade finds he much prefers this frantic, distressed tone to the mouse-timid Mage of a few minutes ago. Not least because he’s so easily close to forcing a confrontation so soon after breaking in.

“If you won’t give it to me, then I’ll just have to-” he taunts, stepping off the bannister with one foot and leaning almost all of his weight over the edge.

A prickle of black energy behind him sets his teeth on edge, Tand he’s suddenly sure he’s done more than enough to bait the fox out of its den. The Mage would have charged up a curse before teleporting, ready to unleash whatever hellish destruction he wishes upon Technoblade immediately after materialising behind him.

Sure enough, the green light in front of him flickers out, the dark vacuum of power behind him overwhelming all sources of light in the hall, and Technoblade swings his weight sideways.

He had been leaning out over the blood-soaked hall with his weight supported by his grip on the column immediately to his left. The gothic aesthetic of this dungeon apparently required the ornate wrought iron pillars of the walkway be in the shape of thin, sharp pentagons. Only a few inches in diameter.

Accordingly, at significant cost to the skin on his palms, Technoblade can easily swing his weight around and propel himself to the other side of the column, avoiding the ball of cursed energy unleashed behind him.

Additional advantages of this tactic are the speed with which he appears on the other side of the column along with the momentum with which he can kick the Mage’s ribcage in.

His adversary lets out a guttural guffaw as the air is knocked out of him and he’s propelled backward into the stone wall behind. His dark hood falls further over his face as his torso buckles around Technoblade’s boot before being straightened out by the impact of the wall.

He immediately collapses to his knees after Technoblade retratracts the leg pinning him to the wall, the many layers of his robes pooling around his pitiful heap of limbs.

Shaking out the raw pain in his left hand, Technoblade raises the sword held in his right up to the bent head of the Daedric Mage kneeling at his feet, gently lifting the fallen hood with the edge of his blade.

The Mage shudders, gasping, and shies away from the fullbright blade in front of him. With shaking gloved hands, he pulls back the hood of his cloak, terror-wide eyes wisely focusing on the hovering blade.

Technoblade had considered the timid, stuttering voice broadcast into his head to be a cheap, thinly-veiled trick meant to distract him, to throw him off. Unfortunately, this assumption now forces him to consider why the ancient, infinitely powerful Daedric Mage he has come to steal God-killing weaponry from is particularly committed to this illusion of a meek whelp.

Crumpled as he is into this fearful ball of thin robes and shaking limbs, Technoblade isn’t sure of the Mage’s height nor the breadth of his shoulders, curved protectively inwards as they are now. He might have been around the level of Technoblade’s chin before he was kicked backwards, a somewhat respectable height, but, the fluffy nest of unkempt black hair is unforgivably pathetic, sticking outward in every direction in a convincing emulation of a startled cat.

In the dim green firelight, his skin is a sickly shade of pale grey, sharply contrasting with the dark red outline of his stuttering mouth.

Lips stained with what Technoblade hopes is Daedric blood required by some sacrifice, the Mage pleads for mercy, the sharp edges of little fangs just visible in the red stain of his mouth as he begs.

“Give me the Gerelglathal and I’ll let you live,” Technoblade offers in a monotone, hoping to quell the imploring noises and wet tears gathering at the edges of the Mage’s brown eyes.

The Mage sobs instead.

“That’s worse” he whines, dipping his head to complain at Technoblade’s boots. “You added syllables!”

His trembling hands fist in the black silk of his cloak, emerald sleeves of the layer below spilling out over his pale knuckles. The cloak has spilled open over his folded knees, revealing a thinner emerald robe folded over his chest, it’s high collar hiding most of his neck as it juts out above the fallen black hood around his shoulders.

The Mage trembles, the sparkling silver necklaces that fall over his chest tinkling with his shaking. They run underneath the heavy silver fastener of his cloak, some intertwining but all suspending layers of shining black gems against the emerald of his inner robe. He’s shaking, evidently still frightened of the brutish theif with the fullbright blade above him, but not frightened enough to ignore Technoblade butchering his Gods’ tongue.

“Please… I beg of you, Gelg-tho-lath.”

Unappreciative of this insolent string of complaints, Technoblade dips his sword down to the Mage’s trembling chin, pushing up into the skin to tilt his head back. He smirks at the hiss of Daedric-possessed skin burning in contact with sunlight-enchanted steel. Whimpering, the Mage jerks his head back away from the blade and thwacks it into the wall, black fumes spilling out from the burned skin on his jaw.

Contrary to Technoblade’s expectations, the image of a cowering, soft-spoken and pale whelp collapsed on the floor before him did not, in fact, flicker away to reveal a grumbling old man with an exceptionally long, grey beard and exceptionally few, yellow teeth.

Technoblade’s experience with ancient Daedric Mages was limited.

Limited to zero. He’d never met one.

But, he had felt confident in the assumption that ancient Daedric Mages would look ancient. Vessels of demonic magic were not naturally gifted in illusion magic, therefore, a Mage holding such an illusion even while being burned with a fullbright blade was exceptionally unlikely.

Technoblade clears his throat.

“Why are you a child?”

The Mage’s features twist from abject fear into a weird hybrid of frightened confusion, apparently only capable of silently gaping at Technoblade.

Half-shrugging, Technoblade gestures vaguely at the Mage’s face with his sword, provoking another panicked squeak.

“Like- why do you look so young?”

“Oh! I-I’m… uh… this is what I looked like when my soul was eaten, so… m-my body is human but my lifeforce is Daedric! I-I-I’m aging on a Daedric timescale?”

“You’re immortal.”

The Mage chuckles awkwardly. “Ki-kinda? I will definitely die if you behead me with that… so… please don’t?”

Technoblade sighs, raising the sword up to the Mage’s throat and struggling to reconstruct that stupid fucking Daedric name in his head, but, thankfully, the quim beats him to it.

“N-no-no-no I get it, I get it! The Gelgtholath for my life!” He shrieks, shuffling backwards and  
pressing tight against the wall, his hands fighting for purchase on the pooled slik at his sides. “That’s fine, that’s completely fine, but-but the thing is- I-I-I-I don’t actually... know... where it is, exactly… uhm, currently.”

Technoblade stares, unblinking.

“Explain.”

“O-of course! Uhm, y-you see, s-so, I- uh- I forge a lot of weapons, and, uh, I suppose you know I’ve been working here for a very very long time and I- eventually, I run out of space in my storage rooms, or I flood a library, or sometimes a forge explodes and I-I-I need to expand deeper into the earth, but I’m really not much of a builder, I mean-I-I’m technically just a blacksmith, so I don’t always build the extensions correctly and the hallways get confusing and I forget where the old rooms were.”

Having depleted his lungs of their air, the Mage rushes to the end of his jumbled explanation, desperately dragging in air and offering Technoblade another nervous, breathless, laugh.

“Explain better.”

The Mage blinks up at him.

“Uh… It’s somewhere in this dungeon,” he gestures vaguely “but I haven’t seen it in at least a couple centuries, maybe more.”

Turning the sword over, Technoblade flicks his gaze down to the set of runes running over the pummel and around the guard, slowly dragging the pad of his left thumb over the shallow etchings.

An orange light spits to life under the metal, burning bright and shining through the shapes of the runes. The sword shudders before rising out of his grip. The blade hangs in thin air, a few inches from the Mage’s throat. It rotates slowly, orbiting the Mage to hover off to Technoblade’s left.

Bending at the waist, Technoblade leans down to gather two fistfuls of Daedric Mage robes and haul the seemingly-young man up to his feet and press him into the wall. Concordant with what he’s seen of him before kicking him to the floor, the Mage was about eye-level with Technoblade’s shoulders. The thin silver chains have tangled in Technoblade’s fingers, the gem pendants tinkling as he lifts the Mage up off his feet and pushes him up the wall to just shy of his own height.

The sword floats up to track its designated target, floating weightlessly off to the side, never more than a few inches from the Mage’s throat.

“How long will it take you to find it?” he hisses, crowding the Mage in against the wall with his body and growling at the gloved hands that come up to pull at his wrists.

“I-I mean, uh, years I don’t know!” the Mage squeaks, cringing away from Technoblade’s answering snarl. “But! B-but I can craft it in a day, maybe less.”

Technoblade startles out of the violent train of thought that the Mage’s disappointing squeaks Mage had sunk him down into.

“A day?”

The Mage in his grip nods vigorously, his little fangs worrying the stained softness of his lips for a few moments as he mumbles under his breath before declaring, “Fourteen hours!”

Technoblade drops him.

The Daedric Mage lands with a quiet, punched-out yelp and clumsily steadies himself against the wall. He seems to do his level best to lean away from the floating blade without leaving the looming entrapment of Technoblade’s body.

After a sharp growl for good measure, Technoblade steps away from the Mage, flicking out his heavy cloak behind him and sneering.

“Go.”

Like he’d been electrocuted, the previously frozen Mage jolts into movement, pushing away from the wall and away from Technoblade, stumbling backwards down the hallway. The many layers of his robes are jerkily pulled and smoothed back into place as he staggers, the fullbright sword floating dreamily a few inches from his throat.

“A-ah, so,” the Mage starts after Technoblade follows, “my forge is j-just along here.” He flicks a glance behind him as he reaches a dark wooden door, his hand flailing out to slide against the black iron lock rail. The metal flashes with green sparks underneath his fingers, and the door immediately swings wide, revealing another narrow hallway, this one lined with chaotically disordered bookcases.

Apparently reluctant to turn his back on Technoblade, the Mage continues to walk backwards through the narrow corridor, arms outstretched to run his fingers along the continuous wooden shelves. His ability to step over the haphazard piles of fallen books and scrolls strikes Technoblade as the most peculiar use of divination magic he’d ever witnessed.

“Why’re you walkin’… like that?” Technoblade asks, kicking a stack of books out of his path. “You know the sword’s soulbound to me. If I wanted to slice you,” the Mage, unsurprisingly, squeaks and Technoblade find himself hurrying to clarify “which I don’t because you’re being useful - staring at me isn’t gonna stop it.”

Small silver crucibles of green fire crackle in between the rows of books, serving as randomly-placed torches. Technoblade is briefly distracted from the Mage’s response, wondering why the flames licking over the wooden shelf above don’t set the whole bookcase alight.

“-very cooperative and I-I don’t, uh,” he pauses, slapping a hand out behind him to open another door, this one recessed into the bookshelves, “don’t find the enchanted sword half as intimidating as I do your, uh, your good self, after having the life kicked out of me.”

More than half-hidden by unspooling scrolls handing down from the shelves above and the assorted chaos of the library-hallway, the door leading into the Mage’s forge is worryingly well-concealed. As Technoblade ducks his head underneath the low casing to avoid thwacking his forehead into the dark wood, he quickly realises that this doorway is the only apparent entrance to the forge. This realisation is followed by a smaller, less useful realisation that this Mage truly is an awful builder.

The ceiling of the forge is much lower than the hallways Technoblade had been stalking through, wooden beams hovering a few scant inches above his crown. A design choice Technoblade assumes was made to accommodate the sprawling mess of forgepits and nothing else. Heavy oak chests line the walls, the faintly glowing runes etched into their panels growing brighter wherever the Mage passes by. Technoblade can only assume they each harbour storage dimensions accessible through their front panels, given the way they’re stacked makes them unopenable.

“Y-you’re, uh, a King or something, right?” the Mage asks, having rounded a high stone workbench that runs the length of the forgeroom. The long slab of stone is interrupted by a few narrow corridors for the Mage to pass through, most of which are blocked by chests and fallen piles of ingots.

Technoblade snaps his attention back over to the Mage from where it had caught on the forge which occupies the entire back wall, its bright river of magma casting the room in an uncomfortable red heat.

“Or something,” he replies absently, staring at the Mage’s hands as they tug a metal-bound book from a towering stack on the bench, the small man letting out a quiet huff with the effort.

His chosen book is only a third of the way up the stack. The others are sent crashing across the bench while the Mage opens up his book, paying no mind to the chaos.

Technoblade lets go of the the door that had been tugging against his grip, fighting to close after giving way to its master, and slowly makes his way into the forgeroom. He winds a path between the stacks of ingots and piles of jagged, raw ores to stand on the nearside of the workbench and watch the Mage rifle through the metal-bound book.

“King’s close enough,” he mumbles, gaze caught on the flashes of illustrations he catches, silently obsessing over the sharp outlines of Daedric weapons.

Suddenly, the Mage’s hands still, and Technoblade supposes that he has found what he was looking for, until he speaks.

“Oh! Th-then should I - uh,” the Mage stammers and trails off, drawing Technoblade’s attention up from his hands to his nervous expression, which provokes more stammering.

“I-I-I-I mean, a-a-are you a ‘Highness’ or a ‘Ma-majesty’ or an-an ‘Excellency’ maybe, uh, not sure what the customs are nowadays, haven’t dealt with royalty in a good few years, but, oh Gods, if you’re crowned then you should be ‘Majesty’ I think?”

Technoblade stares.

“Majesty.”

“Ri-right! Okay, yes, got it, your Majesty,” the Mage rushes, dropping his already lowered gaze from somewhere around Technoblade’s chest back down to his hands, completely unaware of the sudden swell of egotistic glee rushing through the brute on the other side of the table.

All forms of government are corrupt.

Including monarchies.

Particularly monarchies with Technoblade as King.

Despite beheading the last King, conquering more than half of the expanded territories and repeatedly averting Dream’s designs on invasion by defeating the knight in single combat, Technoblade is not the King of Antarctica.

Aware of the megalomaniacal twist in his soul, after killing the Mad King, Technoblade enforced an anarchistic system upon the people of his nation. For the common good, he rejected absolute power in favour of violently suppressing any suggestion of societal organisation.

In practice, Technoblade supposes he isn’t much different to another, particularly eccentric, Mad King. However, more importantly, there is certainly far less suffering in the world than if Technoblade held power over a military.

His presence, whenever he did interact with the citizens of Antarctica, was mostly met with screams and begging. Otherwise it was met with derision and sarcasm, Dream and Tommy, or friendly concern, Phil and Tubbo.

Technoblade hadn’t ever been treated with respect, with deference, by someone he wan’t about to rip limbs from.

Being addressed with such a title by this angelic, trembling voice set his tyrannical streak on fire. He’s quickly yanked out of that self-indulgent spiral when the Mage makes a short noise of triumph.

“Okay, so! It looks like I have all the unbound metal I need! I was worried I might have used Akrientine alloy for the hook, but, according to my old notes, that would be incompatible with the ravaging enchantments, so I must have used Preithil.”

The Mage smacks his palms down on the text and beams up at him, Technoblade’s sword hovering just behind the nape of his neck. “Do you have any requests, your Majesty?”

“What?”

“Like additional enchantments. I’m better at soulbinding long weapons now than I used to be, so I can fit another enchantment on Gelgtholath Mk II, anything you want!” the Mage exclaims, pushing away from the workbench and hauling open a metal sliding cover at the centre of the forge.

Technoblade curses under his breath, leaning forwards to sit on the little bit of free surface on the workbench, struggling to sort though the sadistic fantasies stored away in his mind.

“Uhh…” he mumbles as the Mage removes his cloak, reaching up on his toes to hook it over a rack at the far end of the forge before twisting around to undo the ties of his inner robe that run along his side.

“Can you… I read that the Gelgth-whatever paralyses instead of killin’ if I don’t hit hard enough.”

Tilting his head to the side, the Mage makes a questioning hum.

He unwraps the panels of his robe from his chest as Technoblade forms his next question, the excessively long sleeves gathered up at his elbows as he delicately slides his necklaces down to rest on the next layer. After he shrugs the emerald robe off and tosses it carelessly over the rack, he’s left sleeveless in another robe tied at his waist, this one a pure white.

“Can you make the wound leak acid? Or turn their blood into acid, or their spinal fluid, or their… soul? Into acid?” Technoblade rambles, listing off bodily fluids and incorporeal life forces on his fingers before declaring “Something involving acid.”

While Technoblade struggled over his words, the Mage had untied the last layer of his robes, pulling the panels aside to reveal a sleeveless, emerald tunic tucked into loose, black trousers.

Smiling broadly for a half second before hiding a tinkling laugh behind his hand, the Mage nods, stripping out of the undone robe and throwing it aside, hurrying over to a chest against the right wall. With a press of his fingers, the front panel winks out of existence, revealing a dark void into which the Mage reaches. He buries himself into darkness up to his elbows before retrieving a handful of pulsing, yellow crystals.

“These are Sciycithal corro-gems, your Majesty, all full of Sciyci souls,” the Mage explains, returning to the workbench and offering up the set of hyper-yellow rocks. “Acid-spitting interdimensional horrors. I can stud the Daedric beast-soul that goes into the blade with these, and any non-fatal blow will bathe the individual’s soul in metaphysical acid.”

His arms are thicker than Technoblade thought they would be, pale with defined edges of muscle. Delicate line of inked runes run along the insides of his forearms, disappearing underneath the gloves at his wrists and running up his arms, winding under the defined edge of his deltoid muscles like ornate snakes.

“Is metaphysical acid fatal?”

The Mage’s excited expression falters into a frown. “If it’s not quenched then it’ll eventually kill, yes. The speed will depend on the relative strengths of the enchantment and injured soul, your Majesty.”

“Human soul.”

“Oh, then your Majesty will only be wanting one of the small ones.” The corro-gems are delicately turned over in the Mage’s hands, collecting them in a heap on his right palm. He picks out a single elongated shard, holding it up in front of the King sprawled on top of his workbench. “Anything stronger than this and an unfortified human would be dead within a day.”

The gem glitters with swirling yellow acid, the magic hissing at him even from a couple feet away. Technoblade’s red eyes flick between the gem and the half-smiling half-trembling Mage.

“Do you have a name?” he asks before he can stop himself.

He can’t help it. The delicate confidence that had trickled into the Mage’s voice as he scurried about his forge and explained the intricacies of enchanting god-killing weaponry had won a modicum of Technoblade’s respect.

Patronising respect. For the Mage’s proficiency in an art Technoblade had no experience in, but nevertheless one auxiliary to combat. He severely doubts that the Mage would even be able to hold the Gelthg… the axe properly, given the description in Phil’s book put it at around the length of Technoblade’s body.

“O-oh!” the Mage squeaks, busying himself with the gems gathered in his hands, shifting them around as he stutters. “I thought Dream would have- I didn’t really introduce myself, I just asked you to leave, didn’t I? I’m sorry, my name is Sykkuno, your Majesty,”

Sykkuno.

Sykkuno barely looks up at him as he introduces himself, Technoblade only gets a brief glance of his dark eyes through his lashes and a half-smile before he’s carefully placing the corro-gem shard on the bench and hurrying back to his storage chests, anxiously turning the fistful of gems over in between his palms.

After that, the Mage skitters along the stack of chests on the far wall, reaching into black voids tp pull out shining ingots and screeching soul gems. The latter he whispers curses over to quieten them down, his eyes clouding over in inky blackness as the Daedric tongue corrodes the little humanity he seems to have left. Or it pulls down the illusion of his humanity, Technoblade has no idea which.

Technoblade shifts on the workbench as he watches Sykkuno gather his armfuls of ingots and pocketfuls of Daedric souls, Technoblade’s sword still hovering behind him. He supposes the sword must default to staying out of the target’s vision range, and pushes aside piles of scrolls and strange little tools, fighting for the space to sit cross-legged. His ration pack and satchel are untied from his shoulders after the cloak is unfastened and laid over the most sturdy-looking thing in arms-reach, an apple box filled with twinkling sapphires.

Sykkuno returns to the bench as Technoblade is pulling his ration bag into his lap, depositing his assorted metals in a sprawl over the stone. The Mage starts to quietly explain the purpose of each ingot as he carries them over to the forge to melt, the properties they offer up for the axe and their hidden flaws and incompatibilities that made combining them dangerous.

Technoblade stays silent, listening, chewing his way through the last strips of beef jerky and few slices of waybread leftover from his journey. Sykkuno doesn’t seem to notice him much, focused on his lecture before he falls into silent concentration as he casts the metals.

He does notice Technoblade eating after he returns to the workbench for his pile of soul gems as the last of the metal is set into its mould. His head tilts in confusion as he silently stares at the brute-King sitting on his workbench.

Technoblade swallows.

“You have kitchens here?” he asks before tearing off another mouthful of jerky, necklaces jingling as his head snaps back.

Sykkuno blinks rapidly before shocking himself back into motion. He makes a series of non-commital sideways nods. “Uh, well, actually, this used to be the kitchen.”

He flashes a quick half-smile up at Technoblade and steps forward to separate out the jumble of soul gems. “But then an earthquake happened and the leylines moved so a magma flow burst through that wall,” he explains, gesturing vaguely over his shoulder, “so I moved my forge up here. And then, uh… okay, so... I don’t actually need to eat.”

A subset of the gems laid out in his palms, he carries them back over to the forge. “I run on Daedric energy, so I never really reconstructed the kitchen after I moved the forge in. But!” Sykkuno exclaims, spinning around after laying out his gems to point at Technoblade, “I’m mostly certain there’s some store rooms with salted meat and maybe preserved peaches a couple floors down.”

When Technoblade’s expression doesn’t change, Sykkuno’s pointing arm falls back to his side and he turns back around, crouching down to open a metal cabinet by his knees and pulling out a small metal cage. He takes another cage into his other hand and brings them up to his work surface, muttering quietly.

“I’ll raid them on my way out,” Technoblade mumbles into his jerky.

He knows Sykkuno heard him by the way his shoulders straighten, the way he pauses for a second with his hands inside one of the metal box-cages that’s starting to glow red hot, either from the forge heat or the gems floating in mid air inside it, Technoblade isn’t sure.

Technoblade doesn’t understand a single thing Sykkuno does after that.

The first stage of metal forging wasn’t much different to what Technoblade could do in his own lair, and the little advancements that came from using dark magic to speed things along or from using magma this deep into the earth were mostly cleared up by Sykkuno’s soft little narration.

But now, even with Sykkuno having resumed his rambling, Technoblade doesn’t understand why the gem cages need to line up like they are, or why a beam of black energy spurs forth from a little blue gem and reflects off a few others to form a kind of jagged circle, or why some gems are randomly exploding.

It’s a good few hours before Sykkuno flips the catches on the mould and lifts the lid up for the last time to expose the assembled waraxe.

Technoblade was right.

It’s quite a bit longer than Sykkuno is tall. He struggles for a moment to pick it up out of the mould before he hefts it up to balance on one shoulder, staggering under its weight to carry it over to the far left corner of the room.

Several circles of what Technoblade can only guess are Daedric runes are carved into the floor, bright magma flowing through them, the only light source in the corner closed off by floor-to-ceiling metal sheets.

Sykkuno tips the axe forwards, letting it slide off his shoulder.

It never hits the floor, bouncing lightly in thin air, swaying a little before it’s pulled into the centre of the runes.

After the Mage steps out of the circle, the axe slowly starts to spin, gathering speed on every rotation. Once it starts to blur, the entire corner is suddenly obscured by a pillar of pure darkness.

“Alright, that should need about three hours for the enchantment to settle in, maybe four if the Jugdrunath are sluggish,” Sykkuno declares, stepping away from pitch black column and dragging the metal sheets closed around it.

Even locked away like that, Technoblade was fairly certain he could still hear whining growls coming from the corner.

Attention stuck on the… portal… thing… it takes Technoblade a few seconds to realise Sykkuno has started to gather up his tools, and even longer for his words to sink into his head.

“I thought you said fourteen hours?”

“I did, your Majesty,” he confirms, and Technoblade is surprised by how much he missed the title while Sykkuno was rambling in Mage-speak.

“This only casts the enchantments into the metal. I’ll need to open them up afterwards and drag a few monsters over from the Nether for sacrifices to actually power them, and then I’ll need to find a low-level elemental god to do a blood-lock.”

The disordered forge has been carefully cleared away, the covers on the pits replaced and the room starts to cool again. The sweat gathering at Technoblade’s back is starting to dry uncomfortably, and he’s suddenly reminded of the jungle-earth tracked into his skin and clothes, likely marinated with Leviathan blood and cavewater.

Suppressing a shudder, he picks up his satchel and stands, throwing it along with his cloak under over one shoulder and demanding the location of whatever indoor plumbing miracle the Mage had built into his dungeon.

“Uhm… there’s a hot spring,” Sykkuno chirps in reply, shoving the last of the leftover ingots back into a void chest. “I carved out some baths a few floors up.”

Technoblade steps backwards off the workbench and heads for the door, but is interrupted by a Mage-squeak of alarm.

“N-no wait, your Majesty, uhm, it’s probably best if I show you.” Slipping through a gap in the workbench, Sykkuno hurries over to him, apparently abandoning the robes hung up by the forge.

“You can’t get there by going up the staircase you came down, your Majesty, let alone open any of the doors.” he giggles as he passes by, Technoblade’s sword trailing behind him.

“I have enough explosives to break down as many walls as I need to,” Technoblade insists in a monotone. He takes a splintering grip on the door after Sykkuno opens it, mood only slightly lightened by the concerned twist of the Mage’s face as he looks back up at him from the threshold and the quiet “Please don’t, your Majesty.”

Sykkuno leads him down the library-hallway, away from the bloodstained hall where Technoblade had kicked him to the floor and held him at swordpoint.

Well … started holding him at swordpoint.

“What was that hall back there? With the… statues… and the blood?”

“Oh!” Sykkuno startles, looking back at him with a nervous smile before pushing open a door at the end of the hallway and leading him through a small, round room filled with bubbling, multicoloured vats. Technoblade briefly wonders what kind of creatures would harbour such bizarre, tentacled organs and why Sykkuno would need to keep them suspended in liquids.

“Th-the… the statues are sacrifices... to each of the Seventeen Princes. That ‘hall’ is akin to a Daedric temple.” Sykkuno explains hesitantly, opening one of the three doors on the other side of the room and leading him down another narrow torchlit hallway, one that curved gently to the right.

“How can a statue be a sacrifice?” Technoblade complains, his face screwing up in disgust as he remembers the dark blood leaking from the statue’s head. “The sacrifices are inside the statues, aren’t they?”

Sykkuno laughs but doesn’t reply, leading him around another corner to a new stone staircase.

This far from the forge and the insulated warmth of bookshelves and bubbling vats of demonic organs, the air was cooler. Even in his thin sleeveless tunic, the Mage seems entirely unbothered by the drop in temperature and Technoblade’s unanswered question. Technoblade silently follows as the Mage leads him up two flights of stairs and down another series of twisting hallways.

A fringe benefit to Sykkuno’s atrocious interior design was that Technoblade was absolutely certain he could find his way back to the forge, unassisted.

The lengths of identical hallways were punctuated with rooms so strange and confusingly-organised that even a child would remember the sequence. Their route required them to walk though an apiary of demonic bees the size of cats, a hall with walls filled with haunted paintings but also with a well in the centre of the floor that supposedly led to one of Sykkuno’s disused mineshafts, and then a room consisting of a narrow stone ledge surrounding a pit of silk cushions and vipers.

When Sykkuno finally opens the door to the hot spring baths, Technoblade will readily admit that finding his way here on his own might have taken him hours, but the route back is burned into his soul.

“Okay, so, there are towels in the wardrobes over on the right, and the soaps are in bottles in that glass cabinet over there. They’re enchanted to do different things, hence the different colours, uh, but don’t worry, none of them do anything harmful … uhm, and … well, there are robes in the wardrobes on the left but they almost definitely won’t fit… you,”

Sykkuno trails off, looking up at the brute-King standing a half-foot taller than him.

Technoblade snorts, dropping his cloak and satchel to the marble floor.

The air is thick with steam, partially concealing the three overlapping pools cut into the floor that surround the bare rock that forms the far wall. A steady flow of steaming water cascades down the rockface before falling from an overhang into the centre pool. The waterfall glitters in the bright green light of the firepits dotted along the outside edges of the pools.

Technoblade stretches his arms out behind him, the clean, humid warmth already unwinding the stiffness in his shoulders, and sneers down at the Mage beside him.

“Can’t imagine they would, no.”

His belt goes first, dropping to the white marble with a heavy thunk. It’s wound around him in a loose circle on the floor, his apothecary pouches, daggers and empty scabbard scattered out around him. After that, the hide breastplate is undone, falling from his shoulders with a few clicks of undone buckles.

The shirt is stiff with dried sweat and dirt.

It holds its shape worryingly after he pulls it out from his trousers, hanging starch-stiff and wrinkled down to his thighs. Eager to be rid of it, Technoblade pulls at the buttons around his throat, gathering up the necklaces that hang there and winding them around a finger to hold them aside.

Off to one side, hitherto prey-still in his peripheral vision and therefore unnoticed, Sykkuno squeaks and bursts into motion, spinning on his heel and jabbering out plans to set up a Nether portal along with a garbled entreaty that Technoblade can spend as long as he likes up here.

Half-turning lazily to watch Sykkuno hurry away, followed swiftly by Technoblade’s floating sword, Technoblade only grunts dismissively in response, peeling off his opened shirt and dropping it onto his cloak.

Another muffled squeak comes from behind him before the door closes. Technoblade pays no mind, focused on kicking off his boots and opening the strip of metal buttons on his trousers at the same time.

Gathering up his clothes into a stinking ball in his arms, Technoblade stalks over to the peninsula of marble separating the three pools and imperiously peers down into the waters. After dumping his laundry into the clearest pool, he crosses over to the cabinet of myriad coloured glass bottles and picks out a promising teal-coloured one.

Only after emptying half its viscous contents onto his soaking clothes does he realise the soap’s potency, but by then it’s far too late. First his clothes and then the entire left pool is consumed by neon-blue bubbles and a thick haze of bergamot.

Groaning in frustration, Technoblade replaces the cork on the bottle of hell-soap and carefully sets it, along with his crown, down on the edge of the centre pool before wading into its scalding waters.

After two months wandering through wild, sweltering jungle, his favourite axe dulled cutting down demonic, oversized insects before it was toothpicked by a stinking, Leviathan maw, Technobladed needs to be clean again.

Needs to return home with that stupidly-overpowered Daedric waraxe currently being forged two floors below him and set to expanding Antarctica's western territories. Disembowel, crush, ravage and raze anything and everything in his path.

Enforcing the laws of his state had grown tiresome and bloodless.

The only people left alive were, by definition, wise enough not to anger him and the idyllic peace had long grown frustrating. Further, with this… Gelgtholath … Technoblade wouldn’t have to bother with the repetitive, farcical fighting that preceded his inexorable victory. He could just skip to the end, to the only part he really enjoyed.

Breathing in the steam-thick, bergamot-scented air, Technoblade’s hands flex in the waist-high water as he claws himself back down from his rising bloodlust.

The heat unknots some of the tension in his back as he moves under the small waterfall, soothing warmth running over his shoulders and chest. He sticks his head under it for a few seconds before remembering the silk ties in his hair. Undoing them under the spray is easier than it normally is, the water flattening out the frizz of his long hair, and he soon has them wrapped around his wrist and safely retied.

The mane of his hair has grown past his shoulders now, had been growing unchecked over the course of his quest. His skin is starting to feel raw with the heat, feel like the film of grime and beast-blood was finally dissolving and sliding off of him.

Leaving the waterfall for a moment, Technoblade wades over to the wall between pools and gathers up an armful of blue bubbles, crushing them to his wet chest and scrubbing at his skin. He dips his head in afterwards to get it into his hair and scrubs at his scalp, moaning softly at the feeling.

Frustrated bloodlust mostly forgotten, he returns to the waterfall to wash the blue suds away and marvels at the pinkness of his raw skin. The jungle floor had been dark and wet, his searching mostly shaded from the sun aside from rare bursts in the clearer marshes. Technoblade’s skin had remained pale despite mostly working stripped down to his trousers.

Now, with the heat of the water, his chest is blooming in red, the blush spilling down over his abdomen and under the clouded water.

Technoblade startles when he realises his long-neglected cock is hard, curving long and heavy out into the water between his thighs.

In his defence, the water is blood-hot and thick with sediment. Furthermore, wandering around in the jungle half-mad with fear that a Daedric Mage could emerge from any shadow and feed you to one of his pet cosmic horrors wasn’t particularly conducive to a healthy libido.

In fact, Technoblade struggles to remember the last time he’d wrapped a hand around his cock, let alone got it wet.

Even before he’d gone adventuring he’d been stressed out. Dealing with Tommy while he translated Phil’s human-skin-bound book taken an entire week, and wheedling Sykkuno’s existence and vague whereabouts out of Dream had taken another few days on top of that and now, at the end of it all, he feels like he’s going to burst out of his skin.

Bracing a forearm against the rough rockwall infront of him, he lets the waterfall slide over his back and wraps his right hand around his cock, bringing it up against his stomach, the angry-red head peaking out of the water. Everything about him feels too big for his skin, too hot, and his hips stutter with the need to bury himself into something slick and tight, maybe fuck it to death.

Groaning, Technoblade shakes the violent edges of those thoughts out of his head, pushing his face back under the waterfall while his hand works over the head of his cock. He really shouldn’t be getting his wires crossed, mixing violence with sex like that, because he can feel the edge of something like a pit in his head, that he could fall into and drown in.

Gasping into the spray, he can’t help but strip his cock faster, hand working underneath the surface of the water, making little waves that crash into his stomach. Technoblade’s shoulders start to shake with the motion, little bitten off groans sounding out with every mindless sweep of his own hand over his cockhead.

Lost in the haze, he can feel how quickly he’s going to come, barely a few minutes into touching himself, but he can’t stop, barely even needing to think, to fantasize about a soft thing to fuck into, to make them cry with how much they want his cock, to beg him for mercy in that sweet voice.

Head snapping down, out of the water and heaving in ragged breaths, he realises not only is he really confusing the line between lust and malice, but his frustrated, lust-addled mind has also dragged the Mage into his half-formed fantasies.

But with that panicked but - crucially - conscious thought, the subconscious incoherent fantasies of a faceless voice get thrown into vivid technicolour. Technoblade sobs quietly as his overwrought cock pulses at the idea of stripping the Mage down, following the lines of those tattoos on his wrists with his teeth, bending him over the edge of the pool and dragging him back onto his cock like a cheap, broken whore.

Technoblade hisses, dropping his forehead to rest against his arm on the rock, shoulders curling inwards and eyes scrunching shut as his imagination becomes more elaborate, finding weak spots in his head an exploiting them. The fearful expressions and begging Sykkuno had shot him over the last half-day were warped into a simulation of how he’d look on his knees, how he’d beg Technoblade not to hurt him and how he would carefully open his mouth, tucking his little fangs away to sink down on Technoblade’s cock.

Of course, the reclusive Mage would be inexpert at giving head, and so Technoblade would have to take ahold of his fluffy hair and hold his skull still as he fucked it.

He seriously doubts that the anxious man has had sex in the last few centuries, if ever, and shoving his cock down past that gag reflex would feel like he was ruining something precious. Better yet, he could bend him over that high workbench, force his back into a pretty arch, force himself inside that tight, virgin hole.

Technoblade whines as he abuses his own cock, feverishly stuck on the knowledge that the Mage is so much smaller than him. He could rub Sykkuno’s face into how weak of a man he was in comparison, taking his cock so well, drooling and whining into the stone as Technoblade’s teeth ripped into his shoulder.

And Technoblade knows how to fuck, he crows to himself, imagining how he could make Sykkuno spatter come over his stomach and the bench, how he’d lose his mind so fast, beg for more, beg to get fucked by his Majesty. How his cries would turn from pleading and begging Technoblade not to kill him into fucked-out whines to to let him come, to give it to him harder.

Biting his tongue, Technoblade comes harder than he has in a long time, fingers scrabbling against the sharp rock as he tries not to fall over with the force of his orgasm.

The tips of his fingers burn where he’s split his skin open on the rock, but he can’t bring himself to care as the sweet-hot afterglow rushes down his spine, exacerbated by the insistent grinding of his palm against his oversensitive cock, crushing it against his stomach and wringing out little spurts of come. Technoblade tilts his head back under the waterfall, pushing away from the rock and letting the water rush over his face and chest for a moment.

Not that he needs to get clean, having come straight into the springwater.

Head finally clear, Technoblade staggers out of the waterfall, falling backwards into the water and lazily swimming over to the right edge of the pool, sinking down onto the seat cut into the smooth marble of the wall. He flips his dripping hair over his shoulder to dry over his chest and raises his arms up to rest along the edge of the pool.

He lets out a contented sigh, head tipping back to rest against the flat of the wall.

That… was really something he should have predicted.

After being held in suspense for so long, not knowing if he’d even find the damned Mage or whether he would surrender the weapon once Technoblade got his hands on him, being presented with such a cooperative, young, polite little Mage hadn’t immediately made it through the thick survival-mode fugue in Technoblade’s head.

But… now… now that he’s thinking about it, there’s really nothing stopping him.

Raping the nervous little Mage wouldn’t even make the list of ‘worst things Technoblade has done this year’. And... really, although he didn’t look the part of a thousand-year-old Daedra-worshipping blood Mage, Sykkuno had to have tortured and killed scores more sentient beings in the last millenium than Technoblade.

He didn’t even want to know where he was getting the ‘sacrifices’ for those statues, or how they fit inside.

So, rationally, Technoblade picking up the Mage by his throat and splitting him open on his cock, regardless of how he sobbed and begged for him to stop, was a solid moral grey area.

Chuckling breathlessly, Technoblade’s head rolls to the side, his cheek coming to rest on his shoulder as he watches the bubbles in the next pool over slowly spill over the marble walls. He doesn’t intend to fall asleep, not before his weapon is completed and humming with power in his hands, but he slips down into a warm haze anyway.

Not really dreaming, not really thinking either.

Technoblade loses track of time, his soul dissolving in the hot spring, and then, all of a sudden, something is wrong.

It stabs at the base of his neck, a sudden certainty that if he opens his eyes now he’ll be faced with the yawning maw of a monster, burning demonic eyes and rows of bloodied teeth just about to rip him to shreds.

But, when he jolts awake nothing is there.

The air above him empty but for the wisps of greenfire-lit vapour.

It seems as though the Mage hasn’t summoned one of his ungodly pets into the baths to eat Technoblade alive while he’s unarmed and unarmoured. Instead, the pricking feeling moves up into his skull, warning him he isn’t alone in the room anymore, that the Mage is standing in the doorway.

Pushing himself up on his elbows, skin slipping on the wet marble and sending him crashing back down once before he can make it all the way up. Technoblade whips his head around to stare at the entryway, startling the Mage stanging on the threshold. He jolts, curling in on himself in fear.

Sykkuno looks to be wrapped in his emerald robes again, though the black cloak is still missing from his shoulders. Technoblade’s sword has flicked around to press at his throat, the enchantment apparently startled along with its master. The Mage whimpers, stuttering out his apologies.

“Woa-woah-wait-wait-wait! I’m sorry, your Majesty! It’s just- you-you fell asleep a little while ago and that was-that was fine, but, you were about to start dreaming, and I’m not sure if you know how this charming little enchantment on your sword works but even a hint of killing intent from you, even in a-a-a nightmare, will behead me!”

Apparently having run out of breath, the Mage ends his tirade. The sword at his throat backs off a few inches as the ice-fear in Technoblade’s veins melts away, and starts to drift in slow circles around Sykkuno’s neck.

“You wanna … uh,” Technoblade starts, voice still thick with sleep “explain how you knew I was sleepin’?”

Apparently, that is a question the Mage is hesitant to answer.

Technoblade runs a hand through his hair as he waits for the Mage to respond, gathering it up over his shoulder and gently brushing out the damp knots that formed as it dried in the humid air.

“Oh Gods, so, uh, remember a few hours ago when you broke into my dungeon and I, very politely but futilely, asked your Majesty to leave? So, I did that by picking up a broadcast of your thoughts.”

Knots undone, Technoblade flicks his orderly mess of peach hair back over his shoulder and stands up. His shoulders are a little stiff from falling asleep with his arms up over the pool edge. Stretching them out, he half listens to the Mage’s clumsy explanation, half stares down the insolent mountain of bubbles that had formed while he napped.

“I, uh, wasn’t actually hearing you speak, which is I think what most people think happens, but just the surface thoughts, the conscious ones. And after I… well, you… after you beat me up, I was a bit too preoccupied to sever it, your Majesty, I’m sorry.”

Sykkuno doesn’t actually sound that apologetic to Technoblade. He sounds anxious.

Weirdly, more so than the faded background anxiousness he’d settled into after he’d started crafting. But, more importantly, the edges of father-light sarcasm in his words support Technoblade’s growing suspicion.

“You heard what I was thinkin’ before I fell asleep, then?”

Sykkuno freezes, kindly confirming the suspicion.

The Mage’s eyes are fixed on the floor, his dark mess of hair obscuring most of his blushing face. His hands - which Technoblade now notices are free of his gloves for the first time - are clenched in the smooth fabric of his robes, knuckles stretched white with tension.

Silence hangs in place of the usual stuttering, and Technoblade fills it with laughter.

Even to his own ears, it sounds cruel. Mocking.

“I-I-I was in the Nether most of the time!” Sykkuno insists to the floor, his still-soft voice cutting through Technoblade’s sniggering. “The tether can’t pass through dimensions, i-it-it can’t link over interdimensional voids so it just falls silent! When I got back your Majesty was already sleeping, s-so I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Technoblade stares up at him.

Sykkuno’s arms are ramrod straight, his necklaces glinting in the firelight as he trembles with the force of slightly raising his voice. He’s raised his head at least, showing Technoblade how his entire face is blushed bright red. A rosy nebula spreads across his nose and cheekbones, down his pale neck, dipping behind the high collar of his robes, even reaching the tips of his ears.

“Sure.”

Sykkuno gasps and Technoblade sniggers again, turning away from the flustered Mage to wade though the waist-high springwater and over to the other side of the pool. Leaning one knee on the marble bench under the surface, he reaches out over the edge to retrieve his crown from the wet floor.

Brushing the few strands of hair that had fallen over his forehead, he gently fixes his crown atop his head, shivering at the click of its enchantment sliding into place. Glancing sideways at his Mage, Technoblade watches him quickly bury his face in his hands, the long sleeves of his robes hanging over the tips of his fingers as he scrubs at his hair.

“I- your Majesty, I n-need to-to go, uh macerate the Tagdraks I caught, uh, you can-”

“Don’t you fuckin’ move.”

Sykkuno halts, half-turned away in the doorframe.

His eyes fly up from the floor to Technoblade’s, doe-wide and terrified. The blush is still hanging over his cheeks, his hair even fluffier now from dragging his hands through it, and Technoblade can just about see the outline of his chest rising and falling at a rabbit’s pace, even though the layers of robes.

Technoblade’s sword shivers in the air behind Sykkuno’s neck and darts forward, stabbing shallowly into the top of his spine, the narrow boundary of skin between his hair and high collar. The Mage spasms, yelping and propelling himself forwards by his grip on the doorframe, away from the stabbing pain. He whirls around to confront the sword.

Still half-knelt on the marble seat, Technoblade lets out a startled giggle, surprised at the enchantment’s sensitivity. Sykkuno whirls around a second time to instead cofront Technoblade, stuttering out indignant little noises, one hand covering the back of his neck and the other gesturing wildly between the sword and the man in front of him.

“In my defence, I didn’t mean to do that,” Technoblade smiles, pushing away from the pool’s edge to lazily glide backwards in the water, coming to rest in the deepest part of the centre.

“What I meant to do was tell you, politely, to ‘get over here or I’ll slice you in half’.”

“That’s not even a little bit polite!”

“That’s subjective.”

The Mage makes a despairing noise, glaring down at the King in the water for a few long moments before shuffling forward.

Crossing the few feet of distance between the door and pool edge, he comes to a hesitant halt, hands fisted in his robes and sword following dutifully behind. For a long while, they stare at each other, the silence interrupted only by the rush of the waterfall and the quiet crackling of the firepits, until Technoblade gives in.

“Lemme rephrase. ‘Get in the fucking pool or I’ll slice you in half’.”

Sykkuno lets out a defeated little sigh, his hands playing with a carved-gem pendant hanging from one of his longer necklaces as his gaze flicks over the brute-King’s face, and Technoblade finds himself more than a little offended that he’s yet to catch Sykkuno’s attention straying further down.

As soon as he makes that observation, however, the Mage’s eyes immediately drop down to his chest for a split second before scrunching shut, his face quickly hidden by his hands again.

Right. Telepathy.

“Might want to turn that off for a while,” Technoblade suggests through a grin, thoughts purposefully teasing over the edges of indecency, and Sykkuno hisses behind the shield of his hands.

When he removes them a few seconds later, his eyes are blackened like before, in the forge. Both the iris and sclera pitch dark. They immediately flicker, regaining their illusion of humanity as the curse fades.

“C’mon, little Daedric Mage,” Technoblade laughs, “let me see where those tattoos on your arms go.”

“What?” the Mage squeaks. “They go everywhere. They’re summoning marks,” Sykkuno mumbles, finally undoing the knots that run the length of his ribcage.

Technoblade watches, tongue caught between his teeth, as Sykkuno undoes more ties around shoulders to rid himself of the inner layer, his pendants tinkling as they fall to the next layer which quickly follows the long-sleeved robe. He’s soon left in the emerald tunic he had stripped down to in the forge. That gets clumsily pulled up over his head and thrown aside.

They really did go everywhere.

“Pretty,” Technoblade exhales, gaze desperately tracking the delicate sequences of runes. Up, along the insides of Sykkuno’s forearms, wrapping around his biceps and curling over his shoulders.

There were too many black paths to follow in the short time Sykkuno paused to kick off his boots before yanking open his belt. They radiate out like snakes from the dark chaos of overlapping pentagrams and symbols over his navel, curling around his ribs, between the faintly defines edges of his abdominal muscles and down, below the boundary of his trousers.

Sykkuno’s breath hitches faintly, standing frozen for a second before pushing his trousers down over his hips and letting them fall. Technoblade’s breath catches, making a matching stutter with Sykkuno’s. The summoning marks curve over his thighs in loose spirals, falling down to end in loops around his ankles. Just above his cute, soft little cock lies another series of overlapping circles, set like a constellation with the ones on his stomach.

Technoblade was so caught up, mesmerised by the patterns in his skin and the size of the cock hanging between his thighs, that he didn’t notice the silence that stretched on for several seconds after Sykkuno stepped out of his fallen clothes.

“U-uh, see, your Majesty? Summoning marks,” the Mage remarks hesitantly, hands trembling by his sides with the effort to not bend and twist away from the red-eyed King’s stare.

Receiving no response, Sykkuno steps into the water, immediately dropping down into the deeper level to hide under the opaque clouds of silt. A little kick of lust shoots through Technoblade as he eyes the water level hovering just under Sykkuno’s sternum.

“Yeah, I see,” Technoblade rumbles, brain finally catching up with his ears as he crooks his fingers just above the waterline, gesturing impatiently for Sykkuno to come closer.

Hesitantly, the Mage obliges the King, moving slowly through the water, the blush over his face and chest intensifying with the heat. His dark eyes are lowered demurely, focused on his hands that ghost over the water’s surface, playing with the ripples he makes as he walks. Technoblade’s sword follows behind, trailing at a greater distance than before.

Watching Sykkuno approach him, Technoblade’s chest is filled with a restless hunger, like a sea-god waiting for a sacrifice. He reaches out once he gets just beyond arms reach, darting forwards and wrapping his hands around the Mage’s ribcage like a kraken, dragging him close.

Understandably, Sykkuno yelps in surprise as Technoblade’s hands immediately run down past his hips to grip the backs of his thighs, leaning down slightly to haul the Mage up and wrap his legs around the King’s waist.

“There we go,” Technoblade simpers, adjusting his hold on the startled man in his arms to have him sit flush against his stomach, delicate little cock and balls tucked up into the space between their bodies. Sykkuno’s wet hands slide against Technoblade’s shoulders in a panic, searching for stability and pushing himself backwards and out of Technoblade’s grip as much as possible, his elbows locked straight.

“If these’re summonin’ marks,” Technoblade laughs, shifting Sykkuno into a one-handed hold to drag the other up along the pentagrams encircling the Mage’s navel, “why’re they all leadin’ to your stomach?”

Sykkuno squirms, his eyes bright as he makes aborted little noises of alarm as Technoblade brushes the backs of his knuckles along his wet skin, abdominal muscles jumping. The King ducks his head down to watch his fingers spread wide over the Mage’s stomach, trailing up over hs chest to play with the disordered silver chains before looking up through his lashes at the Mage’s stammering mouth.

“Uh-uhhm-ah, oh Gods,” he swears as the King starts walking, carrying him back over to the front edge of the pool, “they’re-they’re, uh, it’s where my soul was wound up ou-out of my body. Pulling it out from the na-navel is the only safe way of doing it.”

Sykkuno’s gaze seems caught on Technoblade’s mouth as he stutters through his explanation, spine still arched to maintain as much distance between their faces as possible. The short tusks jutting out of the King’s lower jaw are adorned with thin golden rings, tiny rubies set into the metal glittering like droplets of blood.

Technoblade wonders whether his blunt teeth seem intimidating to a man with such sharp fangs. He also, grudgingly, shelves his fantasy of shoving his cock into the Mage’s mouth.

“And the other little thing, here?” Technoblade asks, lifting the Mage up a little higher to deposit him on the pool’s edge. He leans away from the cage of the man’s thighs, both hands free to smooth over the second pattern on the his abdomen. “Right here above your little cock, what’s this for?”

Sykkuno’s hands have let go of Technoblade’s shoulders, flying out behind him to prop himself up on the wet marble floor as Technoblade pushes him backwards by the hand on his stomach, stretching him out so he can see the mess of ink in front of him.

“Sa-same thing,” he mumbles as one of Technoblade’s hands moves down from his tattoos to play with his hardening cock. His lower lip caught in his teeth, fangs pressing into his skin as his thighs flex around Technoblade’s hips. “ I-it re-represents the conditions of the sacrifice. Soulless beings can’t reproduce.”

Technoblade hums, attention captured by the shuddering jolt that sparks though Sykkuno’s hips as he grinds the heel of his hand into the underside of the Mage’s cock, pressing it down into his stomach, and the accompanying whine from the Mage’s bitten lips. His other hand moves down further, gathering up the blushed-dark balls into his palm and pushing the tips of his fingers into the skin behind them.

Sykkuno’s teeth scrape over his bottom lip as he lets it go to suck in a surprised gasp, falling back onto his elbows. Looking up at the King between his legs, he chokes back a surprised whine, hips shifting with the sudden feeling of Technoblade’s thumb finding the slit in his cockhead. The sword has drifted away, floating inverted, standing on its blade tip a few feet away from Sykkuno’s head, the enchantment apparently realising it is no longer needed.

“I’m gonna ask again,” Technoblade croons, keeping his hips flush with the marble wall and his own hard cock trapped against his thigh, hidden by the water. “What did you hear me thinkin’ before I fell asleep?”

The Mage sobs, dropping down again to lie spread out on the floor, his hands free to hide his face in embarrassment after his cock jumps in the King’s hands. While Sykkuno hides, Technoblade wraps his hand around the fully hard cock in front of him, slowly jacking the heated flesh in his calloused palm while he uses the other hand to roll the Mage’s soft balls between his fingers.

Technoblade marvels at how little the Mage’s cock grew as it filled with blood. The head barely peeks out between his thumb and forefinger, his hand enveloping it almost entirely. Sykkuno’s thighs are pressed tight against his hips, like they’re desperate to snap closed and hide the pitifully small, pitifully sensitive cock between them.

“If you don’t tell me now, you’ll tell me after I drag my blade down the length of your pretty chest.”

“Mnh, oh-okay alright okay!” Sykkuno exclaims, flinging his arms out to lie beside him and glaring tearfully up at Technoblade’s gleeful expression. “I-I only really hear words, you know, your train of thought, n-not whatever you were … picturing … but, uh, y-you li-liked the marks on my arms, wanted t-to-uh … ‘skullfuck’ me?”

The Mage’s hips squirm under Technoblade’s hands, his voice rising in pitch as in tumbles over his words.

“Nnn-never heard of- ah, that word for it, but, I really would like to clarify here that I’m not a virgin, no matter how much you seem to like the idea.” Sykkuno hisses, pushing himself up on his elbows, attention split between indignantly glaring up at Technoblade and watching open-mouthed at his the hands working between his legs. “I-I-I don’t have as much experience as you seem to, granted, and not-, oh fuhg-Gods, that is- m-my experience is limited to women.”

“Can’t imagine the women were much pleased by this,” Technoblade mocks, squeezing Sykkuno’s weeping little cock. The Mage lets out a fumbled little moan in response, teeth catching on his lip as he tries to quiet it. “Thankfully, I’ll be pleasing myself,” Technoblade continues, fingers moving down from Sykkuno’s perineum to press against his hole, delighting in the gasp it warns him.

“W-w-wait, I, uhm,” the Mage stutters, shifting his weight onto his left arm to raise his right hand into the air beside him. He drags a trail of green fire through the air in a simple rune.

Technoblade’s movements stop, eyes caught on the fizzing green light of the rounded rune. After a second, it collapses inwards, revealing a dark void.

The void immediately spits out a glass jar into the Mage’s waiting hand and disappears.

The jar is then thrust into Technoblade’s chest.

The King looks down at the cold glass edges digging into his collarbone, then back up at the Mage’s tight-lipped expression.

“Useful,” Technoblade remarks, taking the jar from the Mage’s shaking grip and squeezing his neglected cock. Inverting it, Technoblade watches the thick amber oil inside slide over the cut glass. It smells faintly of lavender when he thumbs open the cork.

“Don’t tell me this is its intended purpose,” he drawls, abandoning Sykkuno’s cock to coat his fingers in oil.

“Of course not! It’s cinder extract” he hisses, forearm thrown over his eyes in embarrassment. “The only thing I could think of that wouldn’t dissolve your cock or curse the both of us.”

His sudden, flustered vulgarity earns a surprised snort from Technoblade. His newly-slicked fingers return to the Mage’s hole, his free hand pressing the Mage’s thighs wider as he leans out of their grip.

Technoblade lowers himself into the water, knees moving from the marble bench down to the floor, leaning forward to throw Sykkuno’s legs over his shoulders. He presses a gentle bite into the soft skin of his inner thigh, delighting in the squeak it earns him, Sykkuno ripping his arm away from his face to glare down at him. Technoblade grips the outside of the Mage’s knee, pressing it against his mouth to lave his tongue over the wound.

Meanwhile, the King’s other hand is busy, pushing the pad of his thumb against the fluttering hole, smirking around the flesh in his mouth when it hesitantly opens up around him. Switching over to his middle finger, he gently pushes the slicked digit inside, twisting his wrist smoothly and watching it disappear into the tight heat laid out for him, knuckle by knuckle.

Sykkuno’s panting is sharp, breaths pushed through gritted teeth.

Technoblade’s mouth makes it way up, biting and sucking into the trembling skin of the Mage’s thigh while his finger slowly splits the man open. Reaching the join his hips, he tilts his head, resting his cheek on the top of Sykkuno’s thigh and darting his tongue out to lick over the base of Sykkuno’s cock.

He flicks his eyes up to the Mage’s face. Sykkuno’s eyes are wide, his mouth dropped open to gasp into the heated air, unable to tear his gaze away from the King’s mouth on his cock.

Technoblade’s knuckles brush against Sykkuno’s rim, his finger completely swallowed whole, and he grinds his hand forwards, cruelly.

The Mage’s mouth drops open wider in surprise, his eyelids fluttering as he makes a punched-out sound, thighs twitching on Technoblade’s shoulders. The King chuckles, puffing warm air over the underside of Sykkuno’s cock before running his tongue up the length of it, smoothly retracting his finger back to the second knuckle to press his index finger in alongside it.

The Mage chokes on a noise, arms giving out under him as he collapses on the marble, spine arching up as Technoblade takes the head of his cock into his mouth.

Leaning back, Technoblade drags the cock in his mouth upright, teasing his tongue into the slit as he starts to steadily pump his fingers in and out of Sykkuno’s hole, teasing the rim with a third fingertip. Occupying the Mage’s cock with only his mouth, his other hand winds its way over Sykkuno’s waist, faintly tracing the black paths of the runes he could see, head trapped in between Sykkuno’s thighs.

Sykkuno loses his breath again and his eyes slide shut as Technoblade spreads his fingers apart in time to the licks over his cockhead, the wetness of tears starting to gather at his eyelashes. Technoblade’s fingers wander up the wet skin of his chest, tangling in a necklace and absently wrapping the chain around his fingers as he works Sykkuno open for his cock.

The Mage’s fingers scrabble against the wet marble as Technoblade adds a third finger, his lips bitten raw from holding back moans. Sykkuno quickly substitutes his lips for his wrist, biting into it as Technoblade pumps his fingers, crooking them deeper inside him for his prostate.

The slick sounds his fingers are making are obscene.

He’s certainly giving Sykkuno too much, too fast, but he’s taking it so well, sobbing out sweet noises even through the hand in his mouth. Technoblade’s a little power-drunk, pushing his fingers in faster, suckling against Sykkuno’s cockhead.

It takes a while of stroking up and down Sykkuno’s slick walls before he finds it.

The Mage’s mouth falls open around a yell, his wrist abandoned and cast off to smack into the marble. Technoblade lets the cock fall out of his mouth to laugh at Sykkuno’s yowling, no longer pumping his fingers, only stroking around the edges of the subtle bump and watching Sykkuno convulse.

“You like that?” he asks, breath puffing out over the slick head of Sykkuno’s cock, arm wrapped around the outside of Sykkuno’s thigh to hold the base of it steady against his lips. The Mage squirms, feet pressed tight to Technoblade’s back as he bucks his hips, moaning freely now.

Opening his mouth again, he sucks gently around Sykkuno’s cock and reaches up, fingertips dragging over the defined chest above to find his mouth, shoving three fingers past his soft lips.

Contrasting with the sting of fangs biting into his skin, the Mage’s mouth is yielding and hot, his tongue immediately darting forward to lick over the King’s fingers. Technoblade rewards him with a twist of his other hand, dragging the pad of his middle finger over the man’s prostate.

Sykkuno groans lowly, hands coming up to grip at Technoblade’s wrist and to gently run through his damp hair, tucking a wayward strand behind the King’s pointed ear. Sykkuno’s hole is gripping tight around his fingers, and Technoblade figures this must be the widest it’s ever been stretched before, shivering at the thought of how the pulsing warmth will feel around his cock. The Mage is humming soft little groans around the fingers in his mouth with each synchronised swipe of Technoblade’s fingers and tongue, his hips shaking with the need to shove upwards, shove his cock down Technoblade’s throat.

The King gets more than a little lost in the slick pressure around his fingers, in the increasingly stattaco whines that the Mage lets out through the intrusion in his mouth. He continues his steady rhythm without much conscious thought, his ability to focus ensnared by the deteriorating composure of man beneath him.

Sykkuno pulls at his wrist, yanking his fingers free from his mouth enough to speak, his lips brushing over the wet fingertips. “Tha-ah-hat’s good already... ready, you can st-stop.”

Technoblade doesn’t hear him.

He feels the breath against his fingers, feels lips moving lazily around syllables that aren’t important right now, and immediately shoves his way back into Sykkuno’s mouth, suckling harder at his cock.

“Y-y-your Ma-ma… nnngh-Techn-nghn… enough, I’m stretch-ah, Gods… stop, you gotta-got-, mn-ugh”, Sykkuno twists his head back, away from Technoblade’s fingers to cry out. The tendons in his neck stand out so prettily that Technoblade doesn’t mind being denied his mouth.

“What’s wrong?” he mocks, dropping Sykkuno’s cock out of his mouth to land wetly on his stomach. Technoblade’s fingertips press into Sykkuno’s prostate, rubbing mercilessly where before he teased around the edges. “You gonna come on just my fingers? Don’t wanna wait for my cock?”

Sykkuno’s head thrashes as he whines garbled pleas, not coherent enough for Technoblade to know whether he’s begging for him to stop or to make him come, and Technoblade wonders what would happen if he took all of Sykkuno’s pretty little cock into his mouth.

It barely nudges against his gag reflex.

Sykkuno melts, all tension leaving his previously scrabbling limbs as he curses and pumps come into Technoblade’s mouth.

Drawing back just far enough to collect the Mage’s come on his tongue, Technoblade hums around the cock in his mouth, fingers still pushing against Sykkuno’s prostate. He chases the aftershocks of the Mage’s orgasm into oversensitivity, the little spurts of come dunning dry and Sykkuno’s hands tanging in his hair, begging him to stop.

Sitting up, Technoblade smiles triumphantly down at the mess he’s made.

Sykkuno’s eyes are cloudy with tears, his mouth bitten raw and drooling, his hair damp and sticking up in odd places, and his chest heaving as he sighs around nonsense little pleas.

His hole is still tight around Technoblade’s fingers as he drags them out. He watches it gape for a second as he swirls the bitter come around in his mouth, watches it contract around nothing and shudder tightly closed again.

Lifting himself up, he moves forwards onto the marble seat again, leaning over Sykkuno’s laid out body. He holds a hand up to his mouth and spits into it, staring down at the Mage as he presses his slick palm to his cock, spreading Sykkuno’s come over the head of it and holding it down to lie against Sykkuno’s own spent cock.

The Mage chokes on an exhale, pushing himself up on his elbows again to stare down at the King’s cock dwarfing his own, spanning from his balls up to just above his belly button. It drips a mess of water and come down onto his overheated skin, flushed a frustrated, dark red as Technoblade grinds it into Sykkuno’s stomach.

“F-f-uh, Gods…” Sykkuno moans, reaching down to ghost his fingers over the length of it, and Technoblade’s head tilts in interest.

“You said my name,” he accuses, watching Sykkuno’s eyes widen and flick up to his face. “Never told you my name.”

“O-oh! Y-you, uh, think about yourself in the third person.” Sykkuno explains, fingers twitching nervously over the foreskin of Technoblade’s cock. “A lot.”

Technoblade blinks, hands frozen on the outside of Sykkuno’s thighs.

“You… you didn’t call me by name before, I thought you didn’t know it,” he mumbles, flustered. Technoblade drags his cock out of Sykkuno’s grasp and leans sideways to retrieve the cinder oil, his own set of golden necklaces swinging with his movement.

Sykkuno giggles, hooking his ankles together against the base of Technoblade’s spine, caging his hips with warm thighs. “Wanted me to call you by your title, didn’t you?”

Technoblade glares down at the simpering Mage underneath him as he pours oil over his cock, spreading it over his palm. He abandons his glaring to hiss as his hands swipes up over the sensitive underside.

“Like both,” he grunts, pushing his oil-slick hands against the backs of Sykkuno’s thighs, unwrapping them from around his waist to bend the Mage in half on the marble floor.

Technoblade leans into his grip on Sykkuno’s thighs as he angles his hips downwards, dragging his dripping cock over Sykkuno’s taint. Hissing at the uncomfortable stretch in his hips, Sykkuno tenses his legs to try and support Technoblade’s considerable weight.

“Line it up for me, won’t you.” he orders softly, smirking as Sykkuno’s lost expression melts with a spark of understanding and he unfolds his arms from their disordered heap over his chest to reach down and gently guide Technoblade’s cock to his hole.

Tension spreads in his stomach as his cockhead slips wetly into tight heat, and it’s oh-so-much-sweeter for all the time he’s spent with his head between the Mage’s thighs, rutting against the marble. He can hear Sykkuno gasping for air like he’s drowning, and can only feel a profound sense of empathy as his own lungs seize up. Technoblade isn’t sure he’ll be able to breathe again until he’s shoved himself all the way inside like an animal.

Chin tucked against his chest, he watches the smooth slide of his cock driving Sykkuno’s ass open in one slick slide. Even vice-tight as it is around him, there’s no resistance to his push forwards, like it’s pulling him in deeper, even past where his fingers spread open.

Immediately after bottoming out, he grinds himself against the rim, trying to shove himself deeper until Sykkuno makes a sharp noise, like he’s been stabbed, and Technoblade can finally breathe.

The bone-deep satisfaction of finally burying himself inside this whimpering fucktoy skips up his spine, turning his vertebrae to hot coals. He cradles Sykkuno’s narrow hips in his hands as he drags in lungfuls of thick air. Sykkuno’s hole is clenching tight with each small circle that Technoblade drags his hips down onto his cock, the movement hindered by the thighs that have wrapped around Technoblade’s hips again, ankles hooking together to cling to his waist as Sykkuno adjusts to being split open.

Chest rising and falling with each ragged breath, pendants sliding off his slick skin to lie in a disordered heap around his collarbones, Sykkuno sobs quietly as he gradually loosens around Technoblade. One of his hands is fisted, white-knuckled in front of his mouth while the other curls around his balls, holding them against his stomach and out of the way of Technoblade’s movements, pretty red cockhead peeking out behind his wrist.

“There you go, little Mage,” Technoblade croons, “such a good little fucktoy, taking my cock so well, spreading your legs so easy.”

“Ea-easy?” Sykkuno squawks, the hand in front of his face trembling. “Y-you thrice-damned, brutish fucking tyrant,” he curses.

Technoblade answers with a shallow thrust of his hips, his hands gripping Sykkuno’s hips hard enough to bruise, the thick muscles of his arms cording with tension.

“Easy?” Sykkuno spits, “You break into my home - ah-ngf - demand I hand over an incredibly powerful weapon - ohfu-” Technoblade laughs, quickening his thrusts to see Sykkuno rush through his tirade. “B-bully and threaten to behea-ah, oh fuck - but I’m easy for not wanting to die?”

“Your complaints have been noted,” Technoblade grins, spreading his fingers over Sykkuno’s hips and pulling them back against his thrusts, using him like an inanimate fucktoy to hear him hiss and curse. “But I would like to call your attention to the fact that you aren’t strong enough to stop me, so, I can do what I like.”

Now that he can’t actually see much of his cock disappearing inside Sykkuno, just the hard expanse of his own abdomen pressing against Sykkuno’s soft thighs and, occasionally, the knuckles of the hand protecting his manhood, Technoblade’s gaze trails up to roam over the body laid out for him.

Over the hollows of skin stretched over his ribs as he gasps for air, reddened chest rising and falling with each sobbing draw of breath. Up to the tense line of his shoulders, their rigidity contrasting with the softness of his jawline, his mouth opened wide and tongue working over his teeth as he stares up at Technoblade, already looking so fucked out despite the indignant spark in his eyes.

“Despite your near-fuckin’-infinite cache of god-killing weapons, you couldn’t use even one of them against me,” Technoblade laughs, abandoning his grip on Sykkuno’s hips in favour of yanking his legs out of their death-grip around his waist. “‘Cause you know that you’re fucked if I disarm you.”

He lifts Sykkuno’s legs up over his shoulders, smiling wider when his ankles hook together again behind his neck, desperate to hold onto something as Technoblade starts to put force behind his thrusts.

“So, I can do this, if I like,” he mumbles into Sykkuno’s calf, having turned his head to press open mouthed, biting kisses into the soft skin just below his knee. “Can smash my way through your dungeon, chase you down and claim you, ‘cause no one in the world is strong enough to stop me.”

Technoblade’s teeth rip into the soft flesh underneath them as Sykkuno twists in his hold, clenching around his cock and crying out. His eyes are wet with tears, mouth open and red as it bites down on one of his fingers, the other hand working furiously over his revived cock as he’s moved up and down along the marble by Technoblade’s thrusts. The King glances sideways over the man underneath him, teeth worrying over the flesh of Sykkuno’s thigh as he works his way down the legs spread open for him.

“Gon-gonna fu-uh... ss-so big... uhng, Gods, I’m gonna die,” Sykkuno proclaims deliriously as Technoblade leans forwards, abandoning the new bruises he was sucking into Sykkuno’s thighs to slowly bend the man in half underneath him.

“You’re not gonna die, little Mage,” Technoblade groans, wrapping a forearm around Sykkuno’s legs, pressing them to his chest and using them as leverage to snap his hips up faster, stroking the full length of his cock in and out of the mind-melting heat. “And I think I’m the preeminent authority on whether or not you’re about to die.”

The only response he gets is non-verbal, Sykkuno whining wetly as he stares up at Technoblade with doe eyes, both his hands reaching down for Technoblade’s hips as he’s slid up and down the slick marble.

Technoblade drops his head, letting it hang between his shoulders as he concentrates on shifting the angle of his hips carefully, slowly, on each thrust, seeking out Sykkuno’s prostate. The King moans into the air between them, leaning back and gathering both of Sykkuno’s knees together to rest over one shoulder, tightening the vice of his hole on Technoblade’s cock and making them both cry out.

Pushing more of his weight down onto Sykkuno, he braces one forearm on the marble beside Sykkuno’s shoulder, other hand still pinning the Mage’s hips into the marble, and raised a knee out of the water to lean on the pool’s edge, to leverage more force into his thrusts.

The change in angle punches out a sharp, wavering wail from the man he’s slowly folding in half. Sykkuno’s pitch rises on each forward push of Technoblade’s cock, his fingernails scrabbling against the flesh of Technoblade’s hips until he changes the angle of his thrusts, just glancing past his prostate rather than hammering into it.

“Fucki-ngh- Namira!” Sykkuno yowls, tears streaming from blackened eyes, over his temples and into his sweat-rucked hair. The magic fades instantly, but Technoblade’s heart still skips several beats.

“I am gonna fucking die, Na-Namira, save me, ah-ngh, righ-right there, fuck me, fuck me just like that, ma-make me come” he demands, hips bucking against Technoblade’s hold as the King switches to longer, grinding strokes, abandoning his assault on Technoblade’s skin to fist his own cock, squelching through his come and precome.

Technoblade knows he isn’t imagining the darkness of Sykkuno’s normally honey-brown irises, nor the gradual blackening of the tongue lolling out of his red mouth as he curses with the name of what Technoblade assumes is some Daedric God.

Shivering, Technoblade wonders whether fucking a God’s disciple was frowned upon by Daedra, or perhaps the God would be angered if he doesn’t acqueisce with the disciple’s pleading.

Either way, in the King’s eyes, said disciple’s demands were unforgivably impudent.

Technoblade bites down on the outside of Sykkuno’s thigh, scraping against the skin he had just pressed his open-mouthed kisses and moans into, and smacks Sykkuno’s hands away from his cock.

He answers Sykkuno’s staccato cries of complaint with a growl around the flesh he’s worrying with his teeth and fucks into him harder, vindictively pounding into Sykkuno’s ass to see him convulse and whine, hands fighting against the marble for purchase as he’s fucked.

“Selfish little slut, huh?” he huffs, licking over the bruising flesh marred by his teeth. “Came not five fucking minutes ago and you want another one, ah-fuck-... s-so fuckin’ desperate for it, ungh-God- pathetic excuse of a man.”

And, really, he was pathetic. Taking Technoblade’s cock like a practiced whore, letting his mouth hang wide open without an ounce of shame as he whines demands, cajoling Technoblade into fucking him harder, to make him come, to come inside him.

“Wanna-wan-uhn, wanna come-please make me come, ahnnng-fucking thrice-damned Kazgol, look so good like that, your Majesty, so-so-so good folding me in half like that, please.”

Technoblade’s head is quickly emptying of any semblance of clarity as the heat in the pits of his guts turns electric, an urgency winding up the pleasure in his spine, and he’s losing control over the rhythm of his thrusts. Curling over Sykkuno, he raises his other knee up to the pool’s edge, mounting the whore properly, pushing his legs down as close to his chest as they’ll go, craning his neck down to bite at his collarbones.

The change in angle means that he isn’t hitting Sykkuno’s prostate with as much force anymore, and his cries turn a little more coherent while Technoblade loses himself to his instincts, the ones that tortured him for months, searching for this little Mage’s dungeon.

Biting at Sykkuno’s nipples earns him the return of ‘loud Sykkuno’ with a sharp, shrill string of complaints. Technoblade can’t help himself, even as Sykkuno’s hands run through his hair to try and dislodge him, and he trails open-mouthed kisses and bites up Sykkuno’s pretty chest to his neck, nudging jewellery aside with his tongue.

What else is he supposed to do, when Sykkuno’s sweet voice is crying curses in his ear, invoking Daedric Gods and begging for more, bent in half in his own dungeon because Technoblade was strong enough to find him, to pin him down and claim him.

He hopes the marks he’s making in Sykkuno’s skin last.

Or, maybe it’s better if they fade quickly, and Technoblade can scatter new ones alongside the healing bruises and bites. They’ll look so pretty on his pale skin, especially if they darken from the blossoms of blood-red he’s leaving in his wake, mottling in purples and greens. He ought to keep Sykkuno dressed in something with an open collar, to display them, something short that Technoblade can just lift up the hem of to expose the other marks he’ll make on his ass and thighs.

Maybe just Technoblade’s cloak, the dark red matching the flush on his cheekbones, proper and regal against Sykkuno’s debauched skin.

His orgasm creeps up on him while he’s too mindless to notice. Too busy fucking his swollen cock down into the man underneath him and tearing into the flesh of the neck like an animal. Suddenly he’s whimpering into the skin under his teeth like he’s dying, holding Sykkuno’s hips still so he can shove and grind himself as deep inside as he can get, some dumb, lizard part of his brain insisting that he breeds this thing underneath him, fuck his come so far inside his tight hole that he feels in his throat, and bite down hard into his soft neck make sure he stays still and takes it.

In retrospect, Technoblade is willing to concede that perhaps his jaw closes a little too forcefully, his tusks buried a little too deep in the skin of Sykkuno’s throat as he’s lost in the feeling of spurting his come into something tight and hot, because the man positively screams.

Technoblade’s ear is ringing a little as he relaxes his jaw, his tongue laving over the hot blood seeping out into his mouth. Sykkuno’s nails are vengefully tearing into the skin of his shoulders as he sobs and bleeds into Technoblade’s mouth.

“I’ve been bit by actual vampires and it hurt less than that!” Sykkuno complains as Technoblade raises his head from his neck. He’s sure there’s blood smeared over his lips from the way Sykkuno cringes at the sight of him.

The Mage’s eyes are fully blackened again. Even his lips are turned entirely pitch-black, the little white flashes of his teeth are the only interruption to the void of his mouth as he gasps in ragged breaths.

Technoblade has just enough strength to puffs out a weak chuckle before he thunks his forehead down to Sykkuno’s chest, careful to tilt his head to avoid stabbing the points of his crown into Sykkuno’s neck. His hips start to work absently, shallowly fucking his come around inside Sykkuno’s hole. Short bursts of weak lightning dance over Technoblade’s oversensitive cock.

Sykkuno’s fingers twitch, falling still on his shoulders. His chest shudders weakly under Technoblade’s crown-adorned forehead.

“Namira, that feels really weird,” he grumbles, and Technoblade can barely reply with a distracted moan before Sykkuno starts up again. “Despite you ripping a hole in my neck, I still felt you... felt you coming. It’s weird, like I could feel the, like- the loads, I guess.”

“Get used to it,” Technoblade huffs, finally pushing himself up off of Sykkuno’s chest to sit back on his knees, letting Sykkuno’s legs fall from his shoulders. He spreads them wide again to look down at the Mage’s hole, to watch his come getting dragged out with each push of his hips.

“C-can you, uhm… you can go again, right?” Sykkuno asks, and Technoblade looks up in surprise at the open hopefulness on his face, noting the way Sykkuno’s cock is jutting out, hard enough to stand up on its own, sticky and red. Sykkuno’s hands are clenched into fists over his chest as he hesitantly adds a “Your Majesty?” to his plea.

“Of course I can,” he coos, ignoring the oversensitive sharpness to glide his cock nearly all the way out and push back in again, making Sykkuno gasp quietly. “Been searchin’ for you for months, you think I’m gonna let you go that easy?”

Technoblade leers down at the magic-blackened Mage with blood staining his mouth, crown glinting in the firelight.

“Yeah?” there’s a breathlessness in Sykkuno’s voice again, and Technoblade is a little frustrated at how quickly the sound pulls him down from his post-orgasm clarity.

“Mhm,” he replies lowly, recapturing Sykkuno’s hips to put weight behind his slow thrusts, “Gonna find wherever you keep your damned bedroom is in this labyrinth, wrap you up in my cloak and fuck you into the pillows.”

Soft thighs wrap around his waist again, and Technoblade smiles at the requisite clicks in Sykkuno’s stiff hip joints. The smile is quickly abandoned in favour of biting at his lower lip as he grinds his cock in deep, zinging oversensitivity giving way to the fervant warmth of fucking a hole wet with his come.

“Keep you braindead on my cock, make you beg me to fill you up with come ‘till you can’t walk. Gelgtholath can wait a couple hours, maybe a few days.”

Sykkuno keens high in his throat while his hips buck, and Technoblade is mostly sure it’s not due to his cock stabbing nowhere near his prostate.

“You like that idea?” he teases, running his fingers up Sykkuno’s sides as he leans over him again, barely even thrusting properly with how Sykkuno’s legs are wound around his hips, just grinding deep.

“You wanna please your tyrant King, little Mage? Make me behave, keep me sated so I wreak a little less carnage out in the world?”

Holding himself up on his forearms above Sykkuno’s lust-clouded expression and wild hair, Technoblade arches his back and rolls his hips up to where he hopes his prostate is, bearing down on it when he finds it and giggling.

“Nnng-no, fuck” Sykkuno moans, grinding his hips up in time with Technoblade’s thrusts and panting out hotly into the air between their mouths.

“Kill as much as you like, don’t care, just don’t kill me,” he whines, desperately dragging his wet cock over Technoblade’s stomach as he gets fucked, thighs shaking with the effort. “I’ll take you to bed, take your cock, make your weapon, whatever you want, just make me come.”

Dropping his head down to lick over the marks on Sykkuno’s chest, Technoblade chances a look up through his eyelashes at Sykkuno’s braindead expression.

He knows what he looks like, tongue lolling out of his reddened mouth as he presses kisses into Sykkuno’s skin, eyes dark and vacant with pleasure, and he can’t help but feel smug when Sykkuno curses in want.

“Be so wet with come for you, keep it inside me all night I promise, fuck, I wanna come so bad, I want it, please,” Sykkuno begs as Technoblade rolls his hips faster, actually aiming for his prostate now that the familiar tightness unfurling in his stomach is accelerating, probably spurred on by the shameful way Sykkuno is rubbing himself off on Technoblade’s stomach.

As he draws his head back up, a string of spit hangs from Technoblade’s debauched mouth for a brief moment until he licks over his lips and it snaps. Sliding his forearms along the marble, he pushes up Sykkuno’s body and comes to rest his forehead heavily down on Sykkuno’s own, making shushing noises at the plaintive cries that erupt on each thrust of his hips.

“Do you like rubbing yourself off on me like a puppy?” he coos, staring down into Sykkuno’s wet void-eyes and chuckling at the incoherent gurgle of his reply.

He supposes that he must like it, given the uptick in Sykkuno’s grinding, and obligingly drops more of his weight onto Sykkuno’s stomach. “You like it that much, huh? Can’t help yourself, cock-drunk slut.”

Letting out a frustrated yowl, Sykkuno’s arms flail awkwardly as he pulls them down from above his head and down through the cage of Technoblade’s biceps to curl around his hips and pull them down, grinding his cock harder between their stomachs. He’s so far gone on Technoblade’s cock, not even capable of cursing him anymore, just high-pitched little ‘uhns’ on each rock of Technoblade’s hips.

“Do your Gods know you’re a pathetic little cockslut for anyone that breaks into your dungeon?” he teases, and Sykkuno gets a little feral, tightening up around him deliciously, and Technoblade decides that mocking him is the fastest way of getting more of that sweet friction on his cock. “Yeah? Should I fuck you in your temple, in front of those creepy fuckin’ staues? Show them how desperate you get for me?”

Sykkuno’s nails are tearing through the skin on his back again, making Technoblade hiss under his breath and fuck into him harder, chasing the tooth-rotting sweetness of stripping his cock inside something as receptive as Sykkuno.

The little ‘uhn’s stop because Sykkuno stops breathing, his muscles contorting sharply as he curls into Technoblade’s body and spurts come across their stomachs.

Technoblade nearly goes blind with how his hole tightens. He can’t move anymore, it’s too tight. Can’t do anything but come.

He pushes his face back into the join of Sykkuno’s throat and jaw, trying to muffle the whines and moans spilling from his open mouth by filling it with with Sykkuno’s smooth skin, but he only manages to pant wetly against it, whimpering with each wave of come that he pumps out into Sykkuno’s ass.

Fucked-out as he is, Technoblade isn’t sure whether Sykkuno was silent as he came, too preoccupied with the mind-melting acid of his second orgasm to notice.

Although, now, as Technoblade drags the scattered pieces of his mind back together, he can hear the soft, defeated little noises Sykkuno is making, his throat rumbling under Technoblade’s tongue.

“Y-you’re kinda heavy.”

Flicking his tongue back into his mouth to let out an unhinged little giggle, Technoblade stretches out the arms that haven’t been holding his weight up since his orgasm hit him like a freight train, running them outwards over the smooth marble and delighting in the strangled groan from Sykkuno with the shift in his weight.

“My apologies, I forgot how delicate you are” he sighs, still shivering with afterglow and the feeling of his cock softening inside something wet with come. Bringing his arms back underneath him, he takes a hold of Sykkuno’s bruised hips and lazily rolls his weight sideways.

His knees hurt, the joints stiff from kneeling on hard marble for too long, and he groans into Sykkuno’s hair as he kicks his legs straight. The Mage is settled on his chest, forehead resting on his collar bone as he sits astride Technoblade’s hips. Wet come slides between their stomachs as Sykkuno adjusts himself, pushing up to peer down at the King.

Unfortunately, the movement pushes Technoblade’s softened cock out of the safe, wet haven of his hole. It lands heavily against Technoblade’s thigh,and Sykkuno winces at the loss, biting his lip.

The Mage’s face has returned to its ‘pretending-to-be-human’ mode, the soft brown of his irises a welcome reprieve from the unnerving blackness, and his mouth the same blood-stained dark red as before. Technoblade sweeps a thumb over Sykkuno’s plump bottom lip, dragging it gently down to expose his perfect teeth, and supposing the colour might not actually be due to ritual blood drinking, given its immediate return.

“I, uh, I hate to break it to you, but Gelgtholath actually can’t ‘wait a couple days’. Or hours even.” Sykkuno sighs, mouthing gently at Technoblade’s tongue as he speaks. “The Jugdrunath will end up eating it whole If it stays over there for much longer.”

He pushes himself up the rest of the way to sit in Technoblade’s lap, beautiful hands resting on the King’s pectoral muscles. His skin is covered in bruises from Technoblade’s fingers and mouth. Both of their chests are sticky with his come, his pretty cock wet and soft against Technoblade’s abdomen.

Technoblade’s cock makes a valiant twitch at the sight, but remains entirely soft and spent, resting on his thigh.

“And it’s another eight hours after that?” Technoblade whines, his voice deepened from coming but twisting up in pitch as he complains. Holding Sykkuno steady by his hips and sitting up, he folding his legs behind the Mage to keep him in his lap.

Sykkuno lets out a startled laugh, his hands having slid up Technoblade’s chest to his shoulders. One flutters up to brush away the long strands of peach-coloured hair that had fallen into the King’s face and tuck them behind an ear.

“Yep, eight hours of pretty much solid work, no further interruptions allowed.” He giggles again, running his fingers through Technoblade’s still damp hair and scratching gently at the base of his scalp. The King’s eyes drift closed as the Mage continues, “I’ve caught the Tagdraks, but nothing else is ready, so if your Majesty would graciously let me free of his lap … And perhaps explain the mountain of bubbles rising out of that pool?”


	2. Chapter 2

Forgelight glints off black metal. A single golden edge of light that traces the arching blade of the infernal waraxe. 

Technoblade gently turns it over in his hands, spinning it with a practiced rotation of his wrists, his fingers easily sliding over the smooth metal of the haft. It’s a jagged thing, blade carved into a crescent of black alloy longer than his arm, stinging little notches cut into the edge like teeth. 

The hooks are sleek, gracefully curving back over the line of the haft, counterbalancing the axehead’s weight. Dull patterns of red run inside the metal, twisting sequences in the jagged arrangements Technoblade has come to recognise as Daedric lettering, none of the curving softness of Sykkuno’s mage runes. 

Just like the sketch that he’d obsessed over months ago, in the place of a pommel is another blade. Much shorter than the one above and sleeker, cut into into a darker metal and embedded with twisting veins of thrumming carmine gemstone. Denser than the rest of the weapon, the pommel-blade shifts the waraxe’s centre of balance lower on its haft, meaning Technoblade can easily spin the awful thing so long as he’s careful not to graze the low ceiling. 

Still, the beast of a weapon is heavy. Almost twice the weight of his last axe and spanning the length of his body. An unfamiliar tension pains his shoulders with the strain of holding it, but, until he can build up the muscle to heft it around, the delicate balance lets him maneuver it.

Power bleeds into the skin on his palms.

Technoblade can feel the energy underneath the metal, feel how it pulses lazily in time with the rune-glow. Feel it scraping over the edges of his soul. 

“This isn’t gonna try possess me, is it?”

“What? Oh- no, no!” Sykkuno laughs, and the warmth in it smooths down the unsettled edges of Technoblade’s worries. “The thistle-God’s soul sealed everything in, and even then there’s another layer of my own magic monitoring the seal, so you’ll be fine.” 

Technoblade swings the waraxe down in a tight arc. The rune-light blurs as it slices through the air before he catches it with a strained grunt, twisting it back around before it smashes through the stone floor. Sweat runs down the nape of his neck, trailing the column of his spine as he hauls the cumbersome weapon through the space Sykkuno cleared for him. 

Cut this deep into the earth, the Mage’s dungeon is warm, the forgeroom especially so with its exposed river of lava. Warm enough to avoid properly redressing after his second bath. Technoblade had only bothered to pull on his trousers, the rest of his clothes neatly folded on the workbench having been graciously rescued and dried in an instant with a wave of Sykkuno’s hand. 

Technoblade’s bare soles slide over warm stone as he steps through a sequence of swings before bringing the pommel-blade of the waraxe down to the floor. A shallow split forms in the stone between his feet, driven open by the metal, and Sykkuno makes an alarmed noise.

“I didn’t make you that thing so you could split rocks,” he complains, pushing up from the exhausted sprawl he’d collapsed into on the nearest worksurface after lifting the finished weapon out of the last pit. “I’ll give you something living to hit if you want to test it.” 

“You volunteerin’?” Technoblade teases in a monotone as he yanks the waraxe out of the floor, words bleeding into a grunt as the weapon pulls free and he takes on its weight. 

“N-no, no, not me. I have a few different things you could practice on, you have any preferences?” he asks, a wry smile on his face. “Human, non-human, sentient, non-sentient, or even immortal?” 

The Mage tilts his head from side to side as he lists his options, and Technoblade really doesn’t want to think too hard about the shiver skipping up his spine at the way he refers to other humans as ‘things’. 

“I trust your craftsmanship,” he gruffs, dropping his grip on the haft to set the axe down as he tries to remind himself how easily the mage crumpled after a kick to the chest, how he struggled under the weight of the waraxe. How little of a threat he is. 

“Although, I would like to see the insides of those things in your temple before I leave.”

“That’s… probably not a great idea,” Sykkuno grimaces, ducking his head away from Technoblade’s inquiring gaze. “Quite a few things are dependent on those sacrifices remaining... uhm, where they are...” 

His hands nervously smooth over the fabric of his tunic, his necklaces jingling softly with his movements after he trails off awkwardly.

“Still, don’t you want to check the enchantments? Y’know I could have just made a very heavy, very pretty axe and you’d never know the difference until you attacked something.” 

Technoblade can’t help the giggle that startles out of him at the sudden brightness in the mage’s voice, the weird twist of an earnest tone despite the obviously false suggestion. He picks up the axe again, just about able to move it around in a single-handed grip but not swing it. Holding it so the pommel-blade hovers just above the floor, he crosses over to the stone table that hosts the Mage’s cross-legged form. 

“Hadn’t considered it, but now I know you didn’t,” he grins, setting the axe down to lean against the table’s edge and looming over the Mage atop it. 

“What? Why?” Sykkuno squeaks, struggling to hide his laughter behind the hand in front of his mouth. The Mage’s bare shoulders shake lightly with suppressed laughter, but his warm brown eyes seem honest, almost persuasive. 

Technoblade stands a head taller and has lean down, the fronts of his thighs pressing against the table as he pushes into the Mage’s space. 

“Because you wouldn’t have suggested it,” he explains softly, threading his fingers through gentle curls to hold the base of Sykkuno’s skull, cradling it in his hand and tilting it upwards as he bends down. Long strands of peach hair spill over his shoulders and into the rapidly disappearing space between their bodies. “Besides, if you _are_ double-bluffin’, I’ll break back in and cut your hands off, make you reforge it with the just the stumps.” 

Technoblade snorts at the spark of fear that dances in Sykkuno’s eyes as he stammers out a response that gets cut off by the press of Technoblade’s lips. 

The Mage’s mouth is as soft as he remembers, yielding against Technoblade in a soft gasp while his hands fly up to the King’s shoulders, running over the sweat-slick skin he finds there. Holding Sykkuno still by the grip on his neck, Technoblade swipes the tip of his tongue across the silk-smooth edge of his barely-parted lips, carefully seeking out the sharpness of his fangs. 

His own tusks press into Sykkuno’s plush lower lip, dragging it down as their mouths slide together. The hands on Technoblade’s shoulders slip down over his arms, searching for something to clutch onto as the Mage becomes increasingly flustered. His breath puffs out over Technoblade’s cheeks as he tries to remember to breathe through his nose. 

After flicking his tongue over the base of one of Sykkuno’s fangs, Technoblade has to break the kiss for a moment to retrieve his injured tongue and hiss at Sykkuno’s answering laugh. 

The Mage’s teeth are sharper than he remembers, although the stinging scratches on the fingers of his left hand throb in sympathy with his tongue. Hurriedly returning to the Mage’s smiling mouth, Technoblade pushes his tongue inside, carefully sliding in between his fangs. 

Sykkuno makes a muffled sobbing noise, his hands scrabbling over Technoblade’s hips and down to grip the fabric of his trousers, dragging him forwards. He jerkily unfolds his legs and spreads them open around Technoblade, spine arching up to push into the kiss as the King licks over his tongue. 

Licking along the backs of Sykkuno’s teeth and pushing against his tongue, Technoblade groans as he slices the side of his tongue open again on the blades of his fangs. Pulling away, his mouth tastes of iron as he rests his forehead against Sykkuno’s.

“Bedroom,” Technoblade pants, abandoning his grip on Sykkuno’s neck to drag him off the table by his hips and into his arms. The Mage’s limbs flail as he’s dragged from his perch before wrapping vice-tight around Technoblade’s hips and neck. 

“Can’t fuck on the marble again, my knees are gonna kill me,” Technoblade mumbles against Sykkuno’s mouth and staggers backwards, blindly picking his way over to the workbench with his clothes. 

“Wai-wait-” Sykkuno breaks the kiss, leaning back in Technoblade’s hold to look him hazily in the eyes, frowning slightly. There’s already a flush creeping over his nose and cheekbones, his eyelashes wet with unfallen tears, his mouth wet from Technoblade’s tongue and hanging open as he gulps in air. “Uh, I-I-I need to open a portal, ha-hang on, let me down.”

Technoblade’s eyebrows twist in confusion but the King obediently drops him, smirking at the alarmed squeak that follows. Sykkuno gingerly unwinds his legs from around Technoblade’s waist, supporting himself by his hold on Technoblade’s shoulders as he safely lowers himself to the floor. 

Free of the King, Sykkuno steps backwards, quickly tugging on his tunic to fall further over the front of his trousers with one hand and drawing serpentine patterns of runes into the air with the other. Watching the Mage’s movements out of the corner of his eye, Technoblade picks though the pile of his belongings on the workbench, uncovering the thick fabric of his cloak and yanking it out of the pile. He waits for Sykkuno to finish his flickering rune set, and startles a little when the space occupied by the symbols caves into a swirling, dark blue void.

The edges of the portal are unnaturally sharp, cutting a perfect rectangle into thin air. Technoblade finds it to be imperceptibly thin as he leans sideways to look behind it, the shape bending creepily with his changing perspective.

“Why’d you need a portal?” Technoblade asks, shifting his attention back to the Mage and reaching out to tangle his fingers in the hem of Sykkuno’s tunic. 

He interrupts the stuttering reply to his question by yanking the article up and over Sykkuno’s head, smiling at the way his fluffy black hair pops out again after he pulls it over his upper arms. Sykkuno emerges from the prison of fabric, huffing and spitting out the few necklaces that had caught in his open mouth 

“- _God’s sakes_ , my bedroom is a good mile away, maybe more, so, porta- what in Namira’s name are you doing _now_?.” Sykkuno cries, looking up at Technoblade in confusion as the King unfolds his cloak, tuning it over in his hands until he finds the golden fastener. Unhooking it, he spreads it in a wide arc through the air, settling it over the Mage’s bare shoulders. 

“Are you dressing or undressing me? Make up your mind.”

“I’m dressin’ you the way I want to, quit complainin’” Technoblade replies mildly, hands busy working open Sykkuno’s belt.

“You don’t sleep as well as don’t eat, then?” 

“A-ah, no, I sleep once a month, maybe.” Sykkuno struggles to kick off his boots underneath the fallen trousers that pool around his ankles, hand flailing out to grip onto Technoblade’s bicep for support. 

“I-uh, I kinda hibernate for a whole day, and then I’m good,” he chuckles awkwardly, holding the edge of the cloak tight against his stomach to hide the hard cock underneath while he steps out of his clothes. 

Batting the fabric away, Technoblade’s hands come down to brush along Sykkuno’s sides, holding the cloak open around his elbows. 

The dark bruising on the inside of Sykkuno’s thighs has faded faster than he’d hoped in the eight or so hours he’d waited, half-dozing on the warm stone floor, for Sykkuno to finish crafting _Gelgtholath_. There’s still a constellation of lavender and green marks running along his leg, another looping over his collarbones under the fur of Technoblade’s mantle, the marks casting the black ink of his tattoos into softer relief than the paleness of his unmarred skin. 

Humming, Technoblade spins them around by his grip on Sykkuno’s hips and pushes him towards the portal. “You first, then.”

“Do-don’t you trust me?” Sykkuno laughs, stumbling backwards. “I swear, this is a one-hundred percent non-lethal teleportation portal, definitely not only safe for mages, you ca-.”

His giggling voice cuts out as his head disappears into the swirling void. 

Technoblade should really hesitate, should throw something in first, should stick just his left hand through it or tie a rope around his waist and loop the other end around the giant workbench. Instead, he follows the Mage through all-at-once, hands still holding onto narrow hips, the bones sharp and skin warm against his palms. 

Like the last time he’d passed through one of these things, the void only lasts for a gut-wrenching second of vertigo and then he’s blinking against lamplight in a horribly cluttered room.

Unlike the portal that let him into the dungeon, there isn’t any acceleration as they pass though, just a brief interruption of weightlessness to his step before it lands on the other side. Still, the feeling is weird enough to make him stumble, collapsing into Sykkuno who staggers backwards under his sudden weight, laughing. 

His voice is sweet, tinkling laughter in Technoblade’s ear like dark honey sliding over his spine, and Technoblade curls into it, dragging him closer and pressing forwards to nose at the delicate skin under Sykkuno’s ear. The Mage shudders, fumbling over his words for a moment before getting out an insistance that Technoblade wait. 

Technoblade doesn’t want to wait. He wants to lick into Sykkuno’s soft little mouth again, bite into his lips hard enough to draw blood as payment for when he pushed his tongue inside and cut himself on the Mage’s cute little fangs. Wants those little fangs hanging dangerously close to his cock while Sykkuno’s tongue presses on the underside, jaw split open wide and eyes dark with lust and unspilt tears. 

“-ned oaf, _look_ , the bed is covered in books and gemstones and Namira knows what else, but if you give me five seconds of peace I can clear it!”

Technoblade snaps back into his head, tongue flicking back into his mouth, breaking the string of spit that follows it from the open-mouthed kiss he had been pressing into Sykkuno’s neck. Still leaning his cheek against the fur mantle of his cloak, he glances over Sykkuno’s shoulder to conclude that the bed was, indeed, a mess. 

His entire bedroom was a mess. 

Bookshelves lined every single wall, their contents disordered and spilling down onto the worn-soft, dark-varnished floorboards. Overlapping rugs of dark green and black covered much of the floor, disappearing underneath the bed and stretching over to the pair of armchairs set close to a hearth. Slumberous coals glowed a dim red-warm. 

Along with light from the gas lamps sitting precariously on every half-clear surface, the bedroom was brighter than the forge. Still, it was the same warm firelight, distinct to the unnerving green torches in the hallways.

Technoblade thought the warmth of the lamplight rather complimented the clutter, casting the chaos in a soft light that suggested coziness rather than complete disarray. Although, for some reason beyond his understanding, haphazard piles of ingots and gems littered the floor alongside bundles of swords leaning against any free vertical space of bookcase, the edges gleaming in the lamplight. 

However, why the Mage would need forge materials and weaponry in his bedroom wasn’t Technoblade’s most pressing concern, given that he was more than half-convinced Sykkuno had just dragged his bed into a library. 

By far, the most common item strewn about this room was some kind of book. Half-fallen stacks of metal-plate bound tomes surrounded the bed. Both armchairs were fully occupied by entirely-disordered mounds of scrolls and bright hardcovers. Even the rafters weren’t spared. 

Unspooled scrolls hung over the wooden beams, perhaps to dry out their indecipherable tangles of inkstroaks or just forgotten alongside the glittering charms and several variations on what looked to Technoblade like dreamcatchers.

Sykkuno had disentangled himself after Technoblade froze to take in the anarchy, hurrying over to the bed tucked against the far wall in a nest of bookshelves. The four-poster was enclosed on three sides, the thick shelves splitting away from the wall to curve around the foot and headboards of the bad. A heavy emerald canopy inlaid with silver hung above, the curtains drawn and tied up against the ornately-carved posts. 

In front of the bed, the Mage’s arms are spread out, the heavy red velvet of Technoblade’s cloak spilling open over his forearms. A faint green glow envelops each of the myriad books, weapons and trinkets littering the bed as they lift up one by one and flit weightlessly though the air. 

Books, scrolls and inkwells float over to free spaces on nearby shelves in no particular order, while small hunks of metal dart past Technoblade, clinking as they are added to a pile on the desk behind him. Sykkuno’s hands glow with the same light, his fingers drifting lazily as orchestrates the storm of his belongings flying back to their intended places, if not an approximation thereof.

Technoblade watches a crossbow float over to the right, twisting past the disordered mantlepiece to hook over the cloak rack by the door, swinging heavily as the magic supporting it dissolves. 

Deciding that at least this aspect of Sykkuno was thoroughly stereotypically mage-like, Technoblade picks his way through the clutter and over to the bed, leaning over Sykkuno’s shoulder to inspect his work. The duvet below the mess of objects is mostly clear now, the soft outline of intertwining snakes embroidered in dark emerald thread against the pitch-black silk emerging as the Mage tidies. Black pillows are piled high against the rosewood headboard, stuffed full with feathers but crushed and indented with the outlines of books and small wooden chests. 

Again, Technoblade’s attention is caught by Sykkuno’s skin. The trail of his summoning marks along the inside on his forearm is just visible before it disappears under the King’s cloak. He leans down to rest his cheek in the fur on the Mage’s shoulder, gaze still caught on the ink against his skin and the glow of his magic, and folds himself in a cage against the Mage’s back. 

One arm gets slung over Sykkuno’s shoulders, forearm dangling lazily over the Mage’s chest to play with the golden chain of his own cloak while the other drops down to push the fabric aside and wrap around Sykkuno’s waist. The green light dancing over his fingers flickers as Technoblade pushes his hips forwards, slowly rutting his cock against the captured Mage’s ass and earning himself a little noise of alarm as the spellcasting sputters out. 

The few objects still in Technoblade’s line of sight are left to freefall for a split second before green haze wraps around them and they return to bobbing weightlessly in the air. Sykkuno tilts his head, vengefully pushing his soft cheek against the back of Technoblade’s head. 

“Impatient little King,” he sighs into Technoblade’s hair, levitating the last chest from the bed, heavy with sparkling silver jewelry and sending it on its way. Technoblade lifts his head from Sykkuno’s shoulder, turning to glower down at the Mage in his arms, wrapped in his cloak. 

The spell cuts out and Sykkuno suddenly twists, Technoblade’s hands skipping over skin and cloak as he turns to smile up at the King and snake his hands around Technoblade’s sides, running spell-cool fingers along the spaces between his ribs and up to press against his shoulderblades.

“Little?” Technoblade complains, tightening his grip on Sykkuno’s waist, pushing his thumb into the soft muscle of his abdomen. Red eyes skip down to look meaningfully at the Mage’s stomach, at the span of his hand over the toned muscle. 

After Sykkuno’s head dips down to follow his gaze and let out a soft giggle, his abdominal muscles tensing against the press of his thumb, Techoblade’s other arm moves from its lazy sprawl over Sykkuno’s shoulder to tangle fingers in his hair and yank his head back. He silences the ensuing yelp with his tongue, still pulling on the Mage’s hair. 

Knocking Sykkuno’s legs further apart with his knee, Technoblade shoves his thigh between them, holding him steady as he drags his cock against Sykkuno’s stomach through the thick fabric of his trousers. Sykkuno answers with a muffled squeak into Technoblade’s mouth, pushing down against the thigh between his legs and grinding his cock into the join of Technoblade’s hips, his hands dropping down from Technoblade’s shoulders. They skip over his spine, down to the waistband of his trousers, fumbling in between their stomachs to find the line of brass buttons holding them closed.

Smiling into the kiss at Sykkuno’s frustrated attempts to undo his trousers while their stomachs are pressed flush against each other, he carefully licks his way out of the Mage’s mouth, coaxing the other’s tongue out and into his own. Instead, Sykkuno breaks the kiss, twisting out of the hand in his hair to lean his head back and to the side, using his grip on Technoblade’s waist to push himself far enough back to look up at the King. 

“God’s teeth, you are contrary,” he complains, tongue thick in his mouth as he circles his hips in little thrusts against Technoblade’s skin. “If your Majesty would be gracious enough to let me undress him, I do have a favour I’d like to repay.” 

His Majesty’s eyebrows raise, twisting his expression from half-lidded amusement to lucid interest, and he slowly disentangles himself from Sykkuno’s legs, allowing the Mage to undo his trousers. Sykkuno pushes them down his thighs with a huff and quickly follows them down, dropping to his knees at Technoblade’s feet.

His face is unnervingly determined as he settles into a kneel, tensed thighs spread out either side of Technoblade’s bare feet, his hands delicately sliding the trousers over Technoblade’s ankles, helping him step out of them. The King’s attention is caught on Sykkuno’s cock, jutting out into thin air between his spread legs, hard enough to hold itself up. He almost wants

to step on it. 

Fortunately for Sykkuno’s continued virility - or not, as Technoblade hazily remembers - he pushes up on his knees before Technoblade can chase that thought, bringing his flushed, upturned face to meet the tip of Technoblade’s weeping cock. The King’s cloak is spread open around his arms, falling down from his shoulders to pool like blood around his spread thighs.

His brown eyes are nervous-sharp, focused on the wet head bobbing in front of his mouth as Technoblade reaches down to hold himself steady at the root, snickering at the flustered but determined Mage at his feet. 

“Open,” Technoblade orders, lips splitting wider over his teeth when Sykkuno’s eyes dart up from his cock to glare up at him. His gaze quickly drops again when Technoblade pushes his hips out impatiently to drag his cockhead over the Mage’s plush lips. With a low grumble against the flesh pressing against his mouth, Sykkuno opens up his jaw, tilting his head back to wrap his blood-stained lips around Technoblade’s cock.

He must tuck his teeth away, opening his mouth wide to accommodate the thickness of Technoblade’s head because all the King can feel is slick softness against his tortured cock, sensitive from being trapped in his trousers for so long. Technoblade’s upper body curls around the man kneeling at his feet with the rush of wet friction as Sykkuno hesitantly laves his tongue over the underside of the cock in his mouth. 

Perhaps encouraged by the slack-jawed leer that has replaced Technoblade’s mocking smile, Sykkuno’s tongue swipes again. It presses flat to the underside and slowly flicks up through the slit, a fat bead of precome catching and getting dragged into Sykkuno’s mouth when he retreats and cringes at the taste. 

“Good little Mage,” Technoblade rumbles, and he can’t help the way his hips stutter forward, wanting to push the sour taste of his cock deep down Sykkuno’s throat, watch him gag and cry around him as he spatters come down that fluttering throat. The Mage obediently opens his mouth again, admitting the head of Technoblade’s cock back into his mouth, eyes downcast and focused as his hands fly up to the tops of Technoblade’s thighs for stability. 

Unfortunately, Sykkuno quickly runs out of mouth, gagging around Technoblade’s cock as it nudges against the back of his throat. He pushes away, coughing, leaving Technoblade to shiver as the cooler air rushes around his spit-wet skin. 

“Sensitive, huh,” Technoblade remarks, letting go of his cock to hold the join of Sykkuno’s jaw and skull, tilting it back to look down into his tear-wet eyes. “You’re just gonna throw up on me if I fuck your throat, aren’t you?” 

“U-uh, I guess? I didn’t think I still had that reflex,” Sykkuno laughs nervously, voice slightly ragged from coughing. “I can probably suppress it with magic...” he suggests, trailing off to press glowing fingertips against his throat, but Technoblade is already stepping away.

“Don’t bother,” he orders softly, moving around Sykkuno’s kneeling body to flop down on the bed. He pushes himself up on the silk duvet to lean against the pillows, spreading his leags out and patting the space between his thighs. “Lie here.”

Sykkuno hadn’t moved from the floor, his torso twisted around to watch the King arrange himself on his bed. Warily, he unfolds himself from his kneel and gingerly climbs onto the bed. The cloak spreads out over Technoblade’s legs as the Mage settles between them, lying on his stomach and suspending himself over Technoblade’s cock on forearms either side of Technoblade’s hips. 

The King’s hands are buried in the pillows behind his head, and so Sykkuno wraps his fingers around the base of the cock in front of his face, delicately picking it up from the wet puddle of spit on Technoblade’s abdomen. Carefully, he opens his mouth again, licking over the underside and pushing it into his flattened tongue. Slowly, he drags himself up to the head, pointing his tongue to dip into the slit again, before opening his mouth wider and taking in the head again.

“It’ll get easier with practice,” Technoblade sighs, thighs twitching around Sykkuno’s ribs as he tentatively bobs his head up and down on Technoblade’s cock. “And I would guess that I can’t suffocate you even if I tried, huh?” 

Sykkuno’s eyes fly up to Technoblade’s, staring blankly in confusion for a moment before he pushes up on his elbows to answer, but the movement is swiftly interrupted by Technoblade’s hand landing on the back of his head, pushing him back down. 

“Nuh-uh, no you don’t. Your tongue stays on my cock until I come in your mouth,” Technoblade hisses, pulling at the strands of black hair between his fingers until Sykkuno stills and blinks up at him, complacent. 

“And the question was rhetorical,” he sighs as the Mage returns to licking over his cock, swirling his tongue around the head. Technoblade’s fingers unwind from Sykkuno’s hair, brushing through the mess they made. “If you’re runnin’ on a God-given lifeforce, I can’t imagine that it would be extinguished that easy.”

Sykkuno makes a short noise of agreement into Technoblade’s cock before pushing his head further down, nudging the head against the tight close of his throat. 

“I bet that once you can take all of it, I could just keep you like this for hours, huh?” Technoblade sneers, amdomen tensing as he lifts his hips up from the bed to shallowly fuck into the split-slick mess of Sykkuno’s mouth. 

“Pretty little throat split open on my cock for as long as I want,” he moans, the blunt edges of Sykkuno’s front teeth scraping over his skin as he struggles to swirl his tongue over the cock pumping in and out of his mouth. “Like it’s more important than breathin’.”

Sykkuno’s eyes are hazy with tears as Technoblade runs his fingers through his hair, tugging sharply on occasion when the Mage sucks perfectly over the tip of his cock. Pulling on his sweet mess of hair seems to earn him moans reverberating around his cock and a brief flashes of warm brown eyes through wet eyelashes. Soft cheeks hollowed out as he bobs his head on the few inches of Technoblade’s cock that he can manage. 

He looks so small lying between the King’s legs, barely sucking on half of Technoblade’s cock, making up the rest with his fine-boned fingers, and Technoblade can’t look away from the red stain of his mouth. He fights to keep his hips flat against the bed as Sykkuno gets sloppier, one of his fangs lightly scraping along the topside of his cock. 

Technoblade’s mouth drops open in an awfully loud moan, his head thunking back against the headboard as Sykkuno pulls up to lick apologetically over the injured skin. He has to abandon his grip on Sykkuno’s hair to grasp at the headboard behind him, heels sliding over the soft duvet with the effort of not snapping his hips up into the heat on his cock. Technoblade heaves air into his lungs, trying to push down the desperate, suffocating feeling in his chest as Sykkuno figures out how to synchronise the movements of his tongue and fingers, enveloping all of Technoblade’s cock in tight friction. 

He drops his head forwards again, grunting through the lip caught in his teeth as Sykkuno’s eyes drift up lazily to meet his own, after taking an appreciative detour over the hard planes of his stomach and chest before reaching his face. A hazy kind of mirth dances in his eyes as he grinds his tongue, pushing the cock in his mouth tight against the cage of his upper teeth, his fangs sliding just either side of the sensitive flesh, and Technoblade sobs.

The wood creaks behind him as he tightens his grip, staring down, open-mouthed at the whore between his legs, at the immortal Mage swallowing and moaning around his cock. Reaching down with shaking fingers, he pushes on the softness of the Mage’s upper lip with his thumb, revealing the sharp fang hovering just over the wet slide of his cock. 

Sykkuno could have killed him by now, if he wanted to. 

Could have killed him after they emerged from the hot spring, Technoblade’s weapons safely sheathed in the heap of his clothes in the Mage’s arms. He had deactivated the enchantment on his sword and followed the Mage back to his forge, had dozed against a workbench, unarmoured and out of reach of his sword. Had followed the Mage through a portal to fuck knows how far away from his weapons.

But here Sykkuno was, lying on his stomach, his hips working in frustrated little jerks as he grinds his own cock into the bed while he fucks his mouth dutifully up and down on Technoblade’s, golden chain of the King’s cloak shining against his collarbones as he works to make the cock in his mouth spill come over his tongue. 

Sykkuno tilts his head, gently scraping the tip of his exposed fang along Technoblade’s cock and makes a triumphant humming sound as Technoblade whispers a garbled string of curses. His fingers jerk away from Sykkuno’s mouth, trembling as his hips stutter up against his will, pushing his cock against the tight constriction of Sykkuno’s throat and comes.

The fingers wrapped around the base of his cock unwind and spread up over his abdomen, stroking over the muscles twitching under his skin as he jerks inside Sykuno’s mouth, flooding his honeyed tongue with come. Sykkuno delicately holds Technoblade’s cock in his mouth, having pulled back to catch the spurts of bitter come on the flat of his tongue rather than choke on them. His eyes are narrowed and self-satisfied as he slowly moves his head up and down, chasing the last, weak little spurts of come as he pushes Technoblade into oversensitivity. 

Shivering, the King gasps wetly, letting go of the splintered headboard to tug on Sykkuno’s hair again, lifting him up off of his cock with a obscene pop and watching his tongue flick out to lick up the last drops of come spread over the sensitive head. 

“Show me,” Technoblade orders breathlessly, sinking his teeth into his lower lip when Sykkuno’s wet mouth obediently drops open, revealing the sticky mess of white sliding over his tongue. “ _Fuck_ , good boy, swallow for me.” 

Sykkuno’s eyebrows twist upwards as he makes a soft, keening noise, tongue darting out over his lips before his throat constricts prettily. His mouth drops open again with a soft gasp as he pushes his head back into Technoblade’s grip. 

“His Majesty sounds so pretty when he comes,” he smirks, voice rasping from the abuse his throat had taken while his hands slide further up Technoblade’s torso. 

The King lets out a startled laugh as the Mage rises up from the bed, spine arching as he folds his legs underneath him while his hands push against Technoblade’s chest, supporting his weight as he climbs over Technoblade’s hips. The cloak drags behind him, casting his pale body into sharp relief against the dark red curtain falling from his shoulders as he kneels astride Technoblade, frustrated little cock jutting out over the King’s stomach.

“An’ what does this good little Mage want?” Technoblade coos, pushing himself further up the bed and pulling Sykkuno closer, “Is he spreadin’ his legs in my lap, hopin’ I’ll stretch him open on my fingers, let ‘im sit on my cock?” 

Sykkuno settles his weight on Technoblade’s thighs, his bent knees pushing into the mountain of black pillows while his fingers drag magic through the air between their chests, arcing green sparks giving way to dark void. A bottle of oil drops through the rift and thunks onto Technoblade’s chest, tumbling down and narrowly missing his spent cock that rests in the crook of hip and thigh when Technoblade snaps his hands away from Sykkuno’s hips to catch it. 

“If his Majesty would be so kind,” Sykkuno simpers while Technoblade hisses, arching his back to lean down onto the smooth skin below him, arranging himself in a lazy sprawl against Technoblade’s chest. His cheek rests on the edge of Technoblade’s shoulder while his arms wrap around his waist, sliding in between the pillows and the King’s overheated skin. 

Faux-innocent brown eyes blink up at him as Technoblade turns the glass bottle over in his hand to push the cork from its neck. Sykkuno’s hips angle downwards, dragging his wet cock against Technoblade’s stomach impatiently while the King pours oil over his fingers. With another bitten-off hiss, Technoblade grabs at the Mage’s waist to hold him still, fingers pressing splaying out over Sykkuno’s side. 

“Quit it,” he mumbles, eyes focused on his other wrist as his fingers disappear under the cloak to press against the yielding heat of Sykkuno’s asshole, the tip of his index finger slipping inside. “You’re not coming before I get inside you this time,” Technoblade warns, the edge in his voice melting as Sykkuno smothers a whine into his shoulder, hips bucking in his hold as the finger slowly presses inside him. 

His hole is just as tight around Technoblade’s fingers as it was earlier. He has to gently twist his wrist and push his fingers apart to scissor the muscles open, his pace leisurely despite the open-mouthed kisses and pleas the Mage is pressing into his neck. Sykkuno’s hands slipped away from the King’s waist once he realised he couldn’t use them to grind his cock into the King’s stomach, and now they tangle in his hair, pulling gently as Sykkuno moans into the mark he’s sucking in Technoblade’s skin. 

By the time Technoblade’s worked three fingers into him, the Mage manages to create a mess of bruises and teeth marks on Technoblade’s left shoulder. The stinging punctures left by his fangs are shallow wounds, but they leave a tightness in Technoblade’s skin, make something in his gut curl tight as Sykkuno cries out at a targeted push of his fingers, helplessly sinking his teeth into the skin of Technoblade’s neck. 

It’s the desperation, he supposes. Even as Sykkuno tries to clench his jaw shut, push his shut mouth into the slope of Technoblade’s shoulder, with the right angle of fingers curling against his slick insides the Mage will instead sob, open-mouthed and sweet, squirming in Technoblade’s lap. 

Whatever it is, it has Technoblade’s cock filling again, hardening against the fluttering skin of Sykkuno’s stomach as the Mage trembles and fights against Technoblade’s hold on his hip. 

“What d’you think?” Technoblade asks the tuft of black hair on his shoulder, stilling his fingers and spreading them gently as the Mage’s head slowly lifts. Sykkuno’s mouth is still open, hanging obscenely wet and red before he clumsily wipes it with the back of his hand. 

“Not doing much thinkin’ are ya?” he snickers, puling his fingers free of the slick vice of Sykkuno’s hole. “Sit up for me.” 

Swaying slightly, the Mage rights himself as Technoblade spreads the excess oil on his fingers onto his cock before seeking out the discarded bottle. His slowly clearing eyes dart between Technoblade’s face and his cock, his expression twisting anxiously.

“Wai- I haven’t… li-like this, um, I don’t know how t-”

“It’s the same movement as fucking.” Technoblade interrupts, tapping the outside of Sykkuno’s thigh to get him up on his knees again, holding his cock upright with his slick hand. The Mage hesitates before rising, shuffling his knees on the bed as Technoblade drags him forward by his hip to hover over the King’s cock. 

Sykkuno leans forward, arching his back shallowly to lean across Technoblade and hold onto the headboard behind the King. His bottom lip is caught between his front teeth again, and there’s a nervous tension in his limbs as he slowly impales himself.

Again, Technoblade’s breath catches in his throat as his cock pushes against the edge of what his hindbrain excitedly crows is _slick_ - _friction_ - _tight_ , his throat seizing up as the resistance gives way and his cockhead is suddenly wrapped in wet-vice. Sykkuno lets out a punched-out noise as he gingerly rocks his hips in tight circles and drops his weight onto Technoblade’s lap, working the King’s cock inside himself. Each push of the Mage’s hips is punctuated by a soft little ‘ _ahn_ ’ noise, his mouth hanging open as he whines, clouded eyes fixed on Technoblade’s. 

“Oh Gods, that-that’s deeper than- feels deeper than before," Sykkuno moans, his teeth worrying his lower lip as his chest flutters with shallow breaths, each becoming a punched-out little grunt as he hums through his teeth. "S-so fucking big, Namira s-s-f _u-_ uh-fuckin’ big."

Technoblade’s attention splits between Sykkuno’s fucked-out expression and the way the muscles of his waist flex to roll his hips in desperate circles. Even after he bottoms out, he grinds down on Technoblade, dragging the King’s cock around inside him as he sobs, the friction making Technoblade keen in the back of his throat. Sykkuno’s hands slip down from the headboard to hold Technoblade’s shoulders, to hold the back of his neck steady as Sykkuno collapses against the King’s chest again and descends on his open mouth. 

And, finally, Technoblade has Sykkuno’s tongue in his mouth. 

It’s messy, complicated by the fact neither of them can get enough oxygen into their lungs, breaking the kiss every half second as Sykkuno’s hips roll. His tongue darts into Technoblade’s mouth, prey-quick, licking gently over the backs of his tusks and pressing lightly against Technoblade’s lips as he whimpers against them. Not really asserting any dominance over the kiss, but Technoblade is happy not to fight him for it, preferring to encourage him further in.

 _Would be_ happy to, if he wasn’t growing horribly impatient with the ineffective little pushes of Sykkuno’s hips that only give his poor, frustrated cock the barest hint of friction. Technoblade’s hands slide up Sykkuno’s ribs, lifting him up and pushing him back to sit properly in his lap. The Mage blinks down at him, slack-jawed as he drags in air. 

“The _point_ ,” Technoblade sneers, dragging Sykkuno halfway up his cock before snapping his hips up. “Of _impalin’,_ ” he continues, shallow thrusts emphasising every other word and forcing startled whimpers from the Mage’s open mouth. “Your _self_ on a _cock_ is to fuckin’ _bounce_ _on_ _it_.”

The last three words are devoted full drags of the length of his cock in and out of Sykkuno’s hole, the Mage’s necklaces jingling as he’s fucked. Sykkuno’s fingers are wrapped around Technoblade’s forearms as he curls in on himself, stammering out garbled pleas that only take coherent form after Technoblade stills. 

“-ds, guh, _fuck_ , I-I-I _said_ I didn’t know-” 

“Lean most of your weight onto my shoulders,” Technoblade interrupts Sykkuno’s nonsense complaint, his voice even as he guides him into the correct orientation of his limbs. “Spread your knees out wider and hook your feet over the tops of my thighs… yeah, then push up.”

The Mage complies awkwardly, sliding up into Technoblade’s arms with a soft gasp, his lithe body tensed into a pale arch against the dark curtain of Technoblade’s cloak. “ _There_ you go, then roll your hips as you move, like this.”

Technoblade’s fingers press into the soft muscle of Sykkuno’s abdomen as he angles him the way he wants. Sykkuno’s flushed cock bounces gently each time he falls down from his knees, dragging wet precome down Technoblade’s stomach as he delicately fucks himself. 

His arms are locked straight where he’s holding onto Technoblade’s shoulders, pushing the light definition of his pectoral muscles together underneath his necklaces while his hips begin to work independently of Technoblade’s guidance, his hole sliding over the full length of Technoblade’s cock in one seamless grind. 

“I-I-I got it, I think, oh Gods, okay, this is more work than it looks," he sighs, one of his hands dropping down to hold his balls flush with the base of his little cock, keeping the delicate skin safe as he puts more force into his movements. 

Technoblade lets him go, bending his arms back behind him to hold onto the headboard again. 

While he could fuck up into Sykkuno, start bouncing him up and down on his cock like a helpless toy, he dismisses the prospect as cheap.

He could rail the Mage in any number of positions, drag him back onto his cock like a two-drake whore and watch him quickly lose dominion over his limbs and speech. He supposes he’ll have to soon enough, once Sykkuno’s likely pitiful stamina drains. But, for now, Technoblade should like to enjoy the sight of an awfully powerful Daedric Mage squirm around in his lap, desperately arching his back to find an angle that scrapes Technoblade’s thick cock over his prostate. 

Silver pendants bounce with Sykkuno’s movements, tinkling and crashing against his pretty chest as he impales himself. They start to tangle with the golden chain of Technoblade’s cloak, pulled taut against Sykkuno’s chest as the heavy fabric slips over his shoulders. 

Gathering the gemstones up, Technoblade lifts them to the Mage’s bitten-raw lips.

“Here, keep ’em safe.” 

The King smirks as Sykkuno’s lust-addled expression clears enough for him to glare softly down at him, mumbling one last half-formed curse into Technoblade’s knuckles before swiping his tongue out and collecting his pendants. He holds them between his teeth as he fucks himself harder, apparently having found just the right way to swivel his body around to grind Technoblade’s cock over his prostate. The King is pleased to note that most of the pendants make it between his teeth rather than dropping back to his chest, the elegant chains arching up off his collarbones and into his pretty mouth. 

Dragging in air between his clenched teeth, Sykkuno moans pitifully, deepening the arch of his back and dragging his hips in tighter, faster circles. The hand that had been between his legs is flung out behind him, fumbling for a moment before he finds Technoblade’s thigh and leans his weight backwards.

His abdomen stretches out, the curve in his spine accentuating the length of his pale torso and the serpentine movements of his waist as he abandons moving up and down entirely. His other hand moves to hold onto Technoblade’s knee under the folded fabric of the cloak, and he leans back further, fucking his hips back and forth in the King’s lap, a determined but clouded expression gracing his features.

From the uptick in yowling moans that spill through the metal in his teeth, Technoblade supposes that Sykkuno’s found a good angle to fuck himself. 

His legs are spread wider than before, flexing apart on each thrust upwards, the light definition of tightened muscles running perpendicular to the coils of tattoed runes. His cock rests on the incline of his stomach, the wet head sliding up and down his skin with each thrust. Underneath the balls hanging heavy between his parted thighs, Technoblade can make out flashes of the base of his own cock. 

A sheen of oil covers his lower abdomen and the insides of Sykkuno’s thighs, likely the product of the Mage’s messy grinding and the excess of oil the King had pushed inside of him, and likely the cause of the obscenely slick noises that accompany the Mage’s movements. 

“Oh, just look at you go,” Technoblade coos, voice strained with the smooth friction on his cock. 

Sykkuno whines through the jewelery, turning his head to the side, trying to escape the King’s mocking. 

Technoblade finds this hypocritical, given the indecency with which the Mage had stared at Technoblade’s pectoral muscles giving way under his fingers as he perched in the King’s lap, how his gaze had flickered over the flexed triceps bent behind the King’s head. Especially so given that Sykkuno’s movements don’t even falter, still enthusiastically running himself through with Technoblade’s cock. 

“What’s wrong, little Mage? Did this awful tyrant embarrass you?” 

Technoblade pulls a hand down from the headboard to press against his chest in false concern, snickering at the tearful glare he gets. Sykkuno’s head is still tilted to the side, his cheek buried in the fur mantle shyly while his hole tightens around Technoblade. 

“Can’t imagine why you’d be embarrassed, though” he continues, releasing the headboard entirely and dropping both his arms down to his sides to run fingertips, feather-light, along the outsides of Sykkuno’s thighs. 

“‘Cause, to me, sure doesn’t look like you’ve got any sense of shame, writhin’ like a whore to get yourself off. Not even botherin’ to touch your own cock, devotin’ all your concentration to fuckin’ yourself on mine.”

The necklaces drop with a thud against the Mage’s chest, dripping with spit. 

“‘m not a whore,” he insists, voice wrecked, fucked-out and low. 

Technoblade raises his right hand to his mouth and licks a broad stripe across his palm, smirking around his tongue at the way Sykkuno’s eyes spark and follow the movement. Spitting into his slicked palm for good measure, he presses it against Sykkuno’s cock, grinding it into his stomach with the heel of his hand. 

It has the dual effect of forcing syrupy-wet sobs from the Mage’s mouth while at the same time his hole constricts on each twist of Technoblade’s hand, stripping Technoblade’s cock with a gratifying kind of over-tightness. 

“Ah, but that’s the worst part. You’re actually not.” Technoblade grins, throwing a sarcastic veil of anguish over his words. 

“I’m not payin’, not threatenin’. You could’ve killed me a thousand times over by now, but you’d rather get on your knees and beg me to fuck your throat, to wreck your tight little hole again.” 

Technoblade’s fingers wrap around Sykkuno’s pulsing cock, nearly enveloping the full length of little thing. He doesn’t even have to move his hand, just keeps it steady and lets the Mage desperately fuck the tight ring of his fingers. From the way Sykkuno gives up on biting back his moans, letting his mouth drop open from where his head is lolled to the side on his shoulder, Technoblade guesses he can’t take much more of this. 

He’s a little proud the Mage had the energy to ride him for this long. Despite the skinniness of his limbs, there’s an admirable strength in them. The idea of teaching Sykkuno how to swing a longsword burns pleasantly in the back of his skull, but is rapidly consumed by the idea of making him come all over his chest and fucking him into oversensitivity until he cries. 

Sykkuno’s thrusts lose what little coordination they had, the grace in his muscles deteriorating until he’s just grinding Technoblade’s cockhead into his prostate with shallow little jerks of his hips. Technoblade doesn’t even mind the loss of friction on his cock because the Mage is cursing and brokenly sobbing, blackened eyes looking up at him through tear-spiked lashes. The King takes pity on the poor creature squirming in his lap and tightens his grip, twisting his wrist.

“All I did was give you the opportunity to sit on a cock and now look at you, pathetic” he sneers, fighting to keep his voice level as Sykkuno yelps and seizes up around him, hips stuttering to a strained halt as he starts to come. Angling his wrist up, he strips Sykkuno’s cock as it pumps spurts of come over his own stomach. 

Technoblade marvels at how little he actually needed to participate, just provide a hard cock to bounce on along with a hand to fuck into and the Mage was gone, barely lucid enough to beg his Daedric lord for mercy. 

Waiting patiently until Sykkuno is shuddering, come wrung out of his oversensitive cock and collapsing down into Technoblade’s lap, his hands immediately fly up to the Mage’s come-soaked stomach, shoving him backwards. Sykkuno grunts as what little air remaining in his lungs is knocked out and he crashes to the bed, arms buckling behind him as they lose their perches on Technoblade’s knees and his spine is suddenly bent back over Technoblade’s folded legs. 

“You could’ve just asked me to move.” Sykkuno’s voice is fucked-out and breathless, his tongue thick in his mouth as he slurs his complaint, laid out on Technoblade’s cloak. Snickering, the King sits up and pulls his legs underneath him, picking up Sykkuno’s thighs and folding the Mage in half as he rises up on his knees, careful to keep his cock buried inside the man he’s rearranging like a doll. 

“Didn’t look coherent enough to coordinate your limbs, and I’m an impatient King” Technoblade teases, pushing Sykkuno’s thighs down and rising further up on his knees to watch his slick cock disappear inside, watch it spread the Mage’s rim open, pretty and swollen. 

“Fucked your own brains out, huh?” he grins, glancing up at the Mage’s face to watch his features twist in embarrassment. 

“Looked so fuckin’ good like that,” Technoblade moans, voice breaking a little as he drives his frustrated cock in and out, putting enough brutal force into his graceless thrusts that they shove Sykkuno down the bed in lewd little jerks. 

“Wanna build a throne just to fuck you on it, looked so good ridin’ me, pretty little demon-worshipin’ slut wrapped up in my cloak, despera- _ah fuck_ , so fuckin’ desperate-” 

Technoblade cuts off as he runs out of air, choking on his words as liquid fire cascades down his spine, dragging him down into an incoherent mess as he comes. His mouth opens and closes silently, the muscles in his jaw working as his eyes screw shut and he shoves his come as deep into the fluttering hole as he can get, driving his hips forward and grinding in deep. He dimly registers Sykkuno swearing underneath him and fingertips running up over the contracting muscles of his abdomen.

Opening his eyes and blinking away the gathered tears, Technoblade’s gaze is still unfocused as he absently works his hips, shallowly fucking his come around inside Sykkuno. His head is bent, hanging between his shoulders while his sweat-damp hair, tangled even further by Sykkuno’s fingers, tumbles over his shoulders. His dark gaze skips over Sykkuno’s hands that sooth over the tremors echoing in his abdomen, raising his head to look over the sharp lines of his tattoos and up to his face. Technoblade’s eyes fixate for a while on the kiss-bruised red stain of his soft mouth before the Mage smiles, little fangs neatly laid over his bottom teeth.

“Is his Majesty satisfied?” he simpers, cruelly clenching down on Technoblade’s softening cock to hear him whine. Technoblade sits back on his knees, releasing Sykkuno’s thighs to slowly drag himself free of the Mage’s wet hole, hissing as his cock drags thick rivulets of come out along with it. They bubble over Sykkuno’s rim and slide down over his ass like thick syrup, seeping into the velvet of his cloak.

Technoblade can’t bring himself to mind the obscene stain on the otherwise carefully guarded garment, his gaze trailing up the mess on Sykkuno’s stomach thoughtfully before unhooking the chain of his cloak and flipping the Mage over by his hip. Sykkuno curses into the duvet, weakly attempting to wriggle out from underneath Technoblade after the King collapses half-on-top and half-alongside the Mage’s overheated body. 

“I take that back,” he grunts, clawing at the sheets to pull himself free of the King’s weight. “Don’t care whether an inconsiderate brute like you is satisfied. Thrice damned son-of-a- _Kazgol_ , you’re heavy.” 

Wrapping a forearm around Sykkuno’s waist to drag him back against his chest, Technoblade buries his nose in the sex-tousled mess of black hair in front of him and pushes his knee between the Mage’s slick thighs to tangle their legs together, curling his body around the complaining little thing in his arms. 

Gratifyingly, most of the come decorating Sykkuno’s abdomen had soaked into Technoblade’s cloak before he squirmed onto his side, though he makes sure to grab a fistful of the fabric and drag it across the remaining slickness.

“Can’t fool me anymore, little Mage, you’re far less delicate than you look.” Technoblade chuckles into Sykkuno’s hair, threading his other arm through the gap beneath Sykkuno’s neck and folding it across the fur of his cloak’s mantle to pillow the Mage’s head. 

Sykkuno twists in his hold, his sweat-spiked hair tickling Technoblade’s nose as he moves around for a second before a something soft but heavy thuds onto the side of Technoblade’s head. Releasing Sykkuno’s waist to rip the black pillow away from his face, he looks up to see the Mage’s smirking face, propped up on his elbow, and green light dancing over his hand. 

“So, I can’t swing a waraxe the length of my body around like a child’s toy and suddenly I look ‘delicate’,” Sykkuno scoffs, levitating another pillow to land beside him, grabbing it and flopping back down beside the King. “Smithed that damned thing, sacrificed an elemental god right in front of you, but you get fixated on the breadth of my waist in your hands and lose all capacity for reasonable thought.”

The edges of the thick duvet lift, suspended in green haze as they gently fold themselves over their naked heap of limbs, and Technoblade can only giggle at the convenience of magic, wrapping his arms tighter around Sykkuno’s torso, hooking his chin over the Mage’s shoulder. 

“I accept no responsibility for my actions,” he sighs before pressing tired kisses into the line of Sykkuno’s neck, hyper-aware of the thoughts dancing at the edge of consciousness that twist excitedly at how narrow the Mage’s shoulders are compared to his own. 

Technoblade’s drowsy attention is again caught by Sykkuno’s skin. The trail of summoning marks that run along the slope of his shoulder and before wandering up to the base of his skull. He fixates on a particular, distinctly spiked rune on the edge of Sykkuno’s collarbone, just over the socket of his shoulder. One he recognises from his waraxe.

“Some of these are Daedric, aren’t they?” he asks, the arm wound around underneath Sykkuno’s neck twisting to brush a thumb against the familiar rune. 

The Mage make an inquiring sound and follows the movement, turning his head back to knock lightly against Technoblade’s. 

“Some of them, yeah, but most are human.” Sykkuno replies, lifting his arm to show Technoblade the coil of runes around his bicep. The King’s other hand lifts from the Mage’s waist to brush over the upside-down sequence of marks. 

“That one is on my axe,” he mumbles, pressing his thumb into the mark on Sykkuno’s shoulder. “Was in the book, too… as was that one,” he presses over another rune on Sykkuno’s arm, trailing his fingertip along the incomprehensible progression. He doesn’t recognise any of the others, but he can tell which are demonic by their shape, the way they distort the space around them if he looks directly at them. 

“What book?”

Technoblade blinks. 

“Uh… found it in a locked room in my Dad’s library. It was written in these,” he explains softly, releasing Sykkuno’s arm and turning his attention to the right-side-up runes cascading over his shoulderblade. Gently, he presses his fingertips against the pattern of Daedric runes hiding amongst human ones. “Had sketches though, and one of them was that axe.”

“Oh, I was wondering where you… wait- but- how did you know its name?” Sykkuno twists around to face him. Technoblade abandons trailing his fingers over the Mage’s skin as his shoulder presses into his chest, eyes flicking up to look at the faint grimace on his pretty face. “Rather, the butchered, weirdly literal translation of its name you gave me earlier?” 

“Hey, my little brother translated it. I’ll take no blame for his linguistic failings, he’s always been a disappointment.” 

“Wh-what?” Sykkuno stammers, expression twisting deeper into concern, his fingers twitching up to ghost over Technoblade’s jawline. “I’m sure he’s not a dis- h-he must be very intelligent to translate even that much. All Daedric runes have multiple readings, you need to be able to recognise the magic underneath to interpret them properly.” 

Sykkuno shifts again, his legs sliding against Technoblade’s as he looks worriedly into the King’s eyes for a few long seconds until Technoblade makes a reluctant sound of agreement. 

“Not to mention there’s only one person still living other than myself who could have taught him, and he rarely visits this plane. How did he learn? He couldn’t have taught himself.”

“He’s rebellious,” Technoblade grunts, eyelids heavy as the Mage’s fingers push behind his jaw and into his hair. “The minute Dad warned us that messin’ with Daedric or Chthonic magic was dangerous, he ran around stealin’ every one of the old books leftover from the forgotten ages that he could find. Some of the older ones were written in both common and runes, so he decoded most of it like that.”

“That’s… that’s both impressive and heartbreaking,” Sykkuno enthuses, voice a little too bright for Technoblade’s exhausted ears. 

He’s sluggish and warm under the thick duvet, pressed against Sykkuno’s miles of heated, silk-smooth skin. The quiet crackling of the hearth burns in sympathy with his soul, sated and lethargic. 

“With that kind of dedication and a little guidance, he could grow so powerful.” 

The Mage’s tone is reverent. Concerningly so. 

“Not a Goddamned chance.” Opening one eye just enough to glare down Sykkuno’s excited expression, Technoblade grumbles quietly. “He already gets into enough trouble as it is.”

All he gets is an unconvincing hum in response, but Technoblade is far too tired to fix this, the most current threat to his youngest brother’s humanity, at this particular moment. 

Letting his eyelid fall shut, he pushes Sykkuno around again until he can bury his nose in his hair and curl his whole body along the length of the Mage, indulging in the smooth heat against his skin as he’s dragged down into sleep. 

\--

He emerges from it in a thick haze, unsure what his dreams had held other than the sweet heat of them, and unsure whether he’s actually awake.

Lamplight bleeds through his eyelids, dim and warm. The lack of daylight has entirely destroyed Technoblade’s perception of time, though he supposes he’s been out for a while, long enough to tangle himself even more in the Mage’s body. His head is tucked against the back of Sykkuno’s skull, shielding his eyes from the bright lamplight in his hair and breathing softly into the bruised skin at his nape. 

As awareness bleeds down his spine and into his body, he again finds himself halfway on top of Sykkuno, likely having dragged the Mage underneath his body in his sleep. 

He has a leg thrown over the Mage’s thigh, his knee hooking around it while his hips rest half on the mattress and half on top of the yielding flesh of Sykkuno’s ass. Stretching slightly against the stiffness in his side - a stiffness that he figures to mean that he’s been lying on this side for a while - he rolls himself against the whole length of Sykkuno’s body. The clicks of his joints sound off in sequence as he stretches, but get interrupted by a soft inquiring sound from the warm thing in his arms. 

Ignoring the sound for now, the fog of sleep in his head too thick to interpret the lilting syllables in that honeyed voice, Technoblade rolls his body again, fighting a yawn and stretching out his legs, pushing down against Sykkuno’s maddeningly smooth skin. He dimly registers that he’s hard again, the satisfying drag of his swollen cock dissolving in the fog in his head.

“You cannot be human.”

It’s only when Sykkuno’s grumbling complaint snaps into comprehension that the fog clears and the structure of bones and muscles under his grip crashes into focus. 

Technoblade’s eyes open, rapidly blinking against the lamplight. He lost his sheild after Sykkuno turned his head to complain at him, and now he’s glaring down at Technoblade, twisted as much as he can in the King’s sleep-heavy grip. 

The gears in Technoblade’s head judder, the engine stalling. 

He can’t help but feel an inexplicable edge of guilt, but, at the same time, it wasn’t his fault. He’d only just woken up, he couldn’t possibly be blamed for something that happened in his sleep. 

Indignation rising to drown out the sheepishness, he narrows his eyes. “More human than you.”

Sykkuno’s mouth drops open, the muscles in his jaw and throat working as a sneer works its way onto his soft features. “Low bar. Whatever gave you those tusks also gave you some horrific kind of beast-libido along with that ridiculous thing between your legs.” 

Pushing himself up onto his elbow with a chuckle, Technoblade looms over the glowering Mage, petulantly grinding his hips forward and his cock against the sensitive skin underneath him. Pressing their foreheads together, he disentangles their legs, getting his knees underneath him and spreading Sykkuno’s thighs. 

“You’re just old,” he grins, tilting his head to press his mouth against the complaints that bubble up from Sykkuno’s tongue and smothering the words he tries eak out through the kiss by rutting his hips down into the wet mess between Sykkuno’s legs. 

He lets out a low whine into the kiss, grinding his cock against the combination of oil and his own come adorning Sykkuno’s taint and thighs. Feverish with the thought of fucking more come inside that wet hole, he shifts his weight onto one arm, the other twisting through the tangle of duvet, cloak and limbs to spread apart Sykkuno’s cheeks. The Mage hisses under his mouth, blunt front teeth lightly closing around Technoblade’s tongue while his fingers find his swollen rim, pressing inside to find it surprisingly loose and slick. 

Again, Technoblade isn’t sure how long he’s been asleep for. Prior to collapsing in the Mage’s bed he hadn’t slept since breaking the seal on the cavemouth, his brief nap in the baths aside. 

Technoblade had thought inhuman regeneration was standard for a Daedric Mage, given how quickly the bruises in Sykkuno’s skin had faded, how the wound torn open by Technoblade’s teeth had closed almost immediately. 

Yanking his tongue out from the cage of Sykkuno’s teeth, Technoblade rises up, fingers leaving his hole for a moment to suspend himself over the Mage on his hands. 

“Kept yourself open for me, huh” he accuses, tongue thick and uncoordinated in his mouth, slurring through his words as he shifts his weight onto his knees, freeing up his left hand to slip back down to the wet stain of Sykkuno’s hole. Spreading it open on his fingers, smiling wider when it barely offers half the resistance it should.

“N- _ngh_ -not exactly,” Sykkuno stammers, spreading his legs out until he hits Technoblade’s knees, eyebrows furrowing as three fingers scissor apart inside of him. “I-I-I just, oh Gods,” he curses, tongue hanging out over his bottom lip and moaning deep in his throat as Technoblade angles his wrist lower, fingertips grazing over his prostate. 

A petty kind of pride swells in Technoblade’s chest at his improving accuracy when seeking out the gland buried in the Mage’s asshole that renders him even less coherent than his baseline stuttering. 

“Res-restricted the regeneration a little, _ahn_ , fi-figured it would, uh ... streamline things? When you woke- o- _oh_ _Namira,_ th-there ... I expected tha-that to be another few hours away, though, dammed obscene bea- _fuck_!”

With a yell, Sykkuno falls down to the bed, smothering his whines into the pillows. Retracting his fingers, Technoblade sits up on his knees, spreading the oil on his hand over his cock, stroking it gently. His gaze moves lazily over the slick skin of Sykkuno’s taint, spreading his cheeks apart with his other hand, considering whether he needs more oil. 

“You’re fine,” Sykkuno puffs out, face red and half turned into the pillow, one half-lidded eye gazing imploringly up at him from underneath his mess of black fringe. “Mo-most of your come… ‘s still-”

Technoblade interrupts the Mage’s mumbling, pushing his cock down to meet the wet rim underneath his fingers and harshly drops his body weight, splitting the Mage open in one slick movement. Muscle immediately gives way underneath him, sucking his cock down and into the slick vice of Sykkuno’s insides, and Technoblade’s lost in his head again, obsessed with fucking his come around in Sykkuno’s hole, have it leak out over his rim with each pump of his cock. 

More importantly, he thinks, dropping his chest down to cover Sykkuno’s back, sliding his arms underneath Sykkuno’s pillow and rolling his hips down into the panting Mage. More importantly, he ought to reward the little thing for being so accommodating. 

There’s something bone-deep, restless in the base of his skull, in the oldest parts of his brain. It hums, satisfied, at the idea that he can wake up wrapped around something as soft and receptive as Sykkuno, roll him over onto his stomach and mount him because he’s still open and full of come from fucking. Just languidly spread himself out over the man’s back and bite into his shoulder to keep him still as he lazily shoves his morning wood inside.

It’s the same kind of feeling that has him scraping his teeth along the column of Sykkuno’s neck, tilting his head to close his jaw around his spine, leave reminders of who fucked him, who he belongs to.

And that’s a dangerous train of thought, but Technoblade can’t help but barrel down it when Sykkuno is moaning wordlessly in his ear, his back arching and narrow hips grinding back against him while his hands reach up behind him to hold Technoblade closer by the back of his skull, press Technoblade’s teeth deeper into his skin. 

He’s grunting like an animal through mouthful of flesh caught in his teeth, obsessing over the punched-out, breathless whimpers he can pull from the Mage’s throat despite the overall inconsiderate nature of his fucking. Collapsed on top of Sykkuno, barely holding himself up enough to not suffocate him and that’s only because he needs the angle to rip into his neck with his teeth. What little air is left in Sykkuno’s lungs is probably being knocked out of him by the savage force of Technoblade’s rutting. He’s too lazy to hold back his body weight to spare Sykkuno’s joints and internal organs that he’s likely crushing. Just shoving himself down with all the strength in his thighs and abdomen and then drawing back up, barely even stroking the full length of his cock inside the Mage’s hole. There’s something about keeping himself sheathed, the softness of Sykkuno’s ass and thighs yielding against his hips as he shoves himself as deep inside as he can possibly get, grinding his brutish, inflamed cockhead into the hole that he’s destroying. 

He must be destroying Sykkuno, fucking like this. Thoughtlessly ruining the slick vice of the hole that he’s been obsessing over the last day or so. How annoyed future-Technoblade will be, to know how the honey-sweet, nervous little virgin Mage that had fretted and begged Technoblade not to hurt him, was being irrevocably wrecked on his cock. 

Said violated Mage is whining a little louder now, pulling against the King’s hands around his wrists. 

Technoblade can make amends later. Take his cute little cock into his mouth, let the Mage fuck as far as he can into his throat, moaning and cursing without Technoblade mocking him even a little bit. Lick down over his swollen balls down to his ruined little hole, lave his tongue over the puffy rim and eat out his own come in apology. 

Before he can do any of that, before he can even finish his ruthless fucking and spill his come into the Mage’s abused insides, the lamplight flickers out. 

Even the hearthlight is extinguished, the bedroom driven into a sudden, gut-wrenching darkness. Technoblade doesn’t even have the time to raise his head, to release Sykkuno’s neck from the prison of his teeth and look about into the deep dark. But there’s time enough for his breath to catch in his throat, for his fingers to twitch from their grip around Sykkuno’s wrists, his arms tensing, ready to pull his axe from his back or knives from his belt. 

The reflex judders to a sickening halt as he realises how far away his weapons are. 

That split-second of lurching darkness, of icewater burning the inside of his spine, is all Technoblade gets before a searing green light explodes across his retinas. 

A disk of emerald fire burns a few inches from his face, washing the room in monotone contrasts of green and black shadows. From where his head is still bent to the Mage’s neck, all he can see is the skin of Sykkuno’s shoulder and jaw, lit in ethereal green. 

Technoblade’s teeth withdraw from Sykkuno’s neck immediately, his head snapping up to face whatever magical retribution the mistreated Mage was about to wreak on Technoblade’s body. 

The disk hangs in the air, magic fizzing and sparking for a moment until the Mage speaks. 

“Hey, Corpse.”

Blood is singing so loudly through Technoblade’s ears, his heartbeat apoplectic as his muscles coil tight, ready for immediate pain and a fight, that he almost doesn’t hear the Mage’s voice. It’s breathless, still low-pitched despite the obvious strain in it, and Technoblade can barely process the words through the panicked fog in his head. He gets as far as concluding they must be a particularly ambiguous threat before the lamps burst into flame again.

Half-blinded by green magic, Technoblade hadn’t been able to see what lay in the dark beyond the bed. He now realises what he saw as a continuous disk of light was actually several spinning concentric rings of runes, twisting together in front of the Mage’s splayed hand.

His hand that faces away from Technoblade.

Over the edge of outermost layer of symbols, Technoblade’s fear-blown eyes skip up the blade of the the longest claymore he’s ever had the displeasure of seeing pointed at his throat. The entire length of the heavy blade is a brilliant red metal, shining in the green magelight. 

The King’s gaze follows the gleaming blade up to where it disappears underneath the dark half-cloak of the Demon wielding it. 

Horns curl upwards from his skull, bone-white and sharp above black curls that fall across his cheekbones and into his blackened eyes. The same way Sykkuno’s would turn dark as he brought his lord’s name across his tongue, this Demon’s sclera and iris were both pitch-dark, matching the void of his snarling maw. 

Where Sykkuno’s sharp little teeth were adorable, this one’s mouth was full of knives, jagged and broad and shining white against his dark tongue. Even though Technoblade could only see the upper set of teeth, the Demon’s mouth half-hidden by the high collar of his cloak, he’s very fucking certain that he wouldn’t put his cock anywhere near that sawblade of a mouth. 

Not least because of the rumbling growl spilling from the Demon’s maw that resonates in Technoblade’s chest, setting a restlessness in his spine. It’s a kind of anxious urgency, begging Technoblade to sink his waraxe between the Demon’s ribs, to split his bones apart, behead, maim and mutilate until the damned thing stops that terrifying noise. 

Unfortunately for Technoblade, the noise only gets louder. 

Irisless as he is, Technoblade can’t tell exactly where the Demon’s gaze is focused, but a small jerk of his head upwards seems to switch his attention from the Mage underneath him over to Technoblade himself. This is accompanied by more sparking magic where the claymore is lodged in the sheild conjured from the Mage’s palm and a screeching edge to the creature’s rumbling growl, his black mouth sneering wider. 

“The fuck you think you’re doing to the Divine Vessel, pig-fucker?”

Divine Vessel?

More importantly, pig-fucker?

Technoblade pushes his knees into the bed, hauling himself up to sit back on his heels. At the last second, he remembers to pull the Mage up with him. 

Given Sykkuno’s arm falls a good foot too short to protect Technoblade’s threatened neck while still prone on the bed, Technoblade feels he would be remiss not to drag him up by the arm wrapped under his stomach. Not to mention dead. The Mage lets out a guttural sound as he’s lifted followed by squeaking as he tries to hold his arm steady, the sheild wobbling with his movements. 

He crushes Sykkuno against his chest, dragging him into his lap and hooking his chin over his shoulder to glare at the interrupting Demon. The Mage curses, dragging a fold of the discarded duvet up to his stomach with his free hand, and Technoblade is surprised to see that the Mage’s cock is still hard, catching a flash of it laying over a pale thigh before it’s swallowed up by black fabric. 

Even with a sword at his throat, the sight of sticky precome on Sykkuno’s abdomen and thigh, his pretty cock pink and swollen with blood sets sparks skipping down Technoblade’s vertebrae, sets his own cock pulsing, still half-hard inside the Mage’s hole. 

The untimely spark of lust that shoots through Technoblade’s chest distracts him from his retaliation against the demon’s insult for long enough that the Mage cuts in, nervous laughter settling over the tense atmosphere like oil on water. 

“N-n-now, Corpse, th-that’s not very polite,” Sykkuno scolds, his tone light despite the strain in his jaw. Technoblade, with his chin resting heavily on the Mage’s collarbone, notices for the first time that Sykkuno’s mouth and eyes are blackened to match the demon’s, stained with the force of his magic. “Why don’t you put _Valtha’ranir_ down for a moment?”

The growling quietens, trailing off as the claymore is slowly lowered. 

Sykkuno’s magic immediately sputters out, and Technoblade can finally see the tip of the blade, shining in the lamplight.

He supposes the demon’s growling must have drowned out the quiet splattering of blood spilling onto the soft fabric of the rugs. The metal of the claymore, _Valtha-_ whatever, wasn’t cast from red alloy. Rather, it was coated in blood. 

Rivulets fall over the face of the blade from underneath the demon’s half-cloak, continuously dripping from the tip as if the entire sword had just been pulled out of a gargantuan wound and not spent the last half-minute held at Tehnoblade’s throat. 

The dubiously-sourced blood wasn’t even the most disturbing aspect of the wretched thing, that title being reserved for the way the demon held the behemoth of a sword with a single hand, not even shifting his weight to counterbalance it as he swings it out to the side, flicking spatters of blood across the room. 

“You wanna explain why you’re protecting that beast?” the demon spits petulantly, turning the claymore over in his grip and stabbing it into the floor beside him. 

His cloak is cast open over his arm, and Technoblade notices the layers of his dark clothing for the first time. Each garment is pitch black, indistinguishable where they overlap. What looks like a tunic runs down from the high cowl of his cloak, ending just below his sternum. His stomach is bare, grey-pale skin adorned with thin silver chains that cross around his waist. Tiny black gemstones similar to those hanging around Sykkuno’s neck punctuate the chainlinks running over the sharp definition of his abdominal muscles before they disappear into the mess of belts around his hips. 

“Because this beast is my guest and you threatened him,” Sykkuno explains gently, his hands twisting nervously in the duvet thrown over his lap. 

Technoblade silently curls tighter around him, threading both arms under the duvet and around the Mage’s waist. He drops the glare on his face, instead looking up innocently at the interloping Demon from where his face is half-hidden in the Mage’s hair, satisfied when the Demon’s black lip curls into an uglier snarl. 

“What company you keep that a ‘guest’ would rape you in your own bed,” the Demon sneers, void-dark energy sparking over the fingers of his left hand. “Let me rend that boar’s skin from his meat. I’ll strip out his mana along with whatever puppet-curse he’s put on you to make you protect his wretched hide.” 

“Are- are you _blind_?” Sykkuno asks, his voice turning high-pitched with incredulity. “Okay, Corpse, maybe from where you’re standing my mana might be eclipsing his, so you can be forgiven for missing his absolute deficiency of mana, but this man couldn’t enchant a nightingale to sing, let alone curse me.”

Technoblade can’t bring himself to be in the least offended by Sykkuno’s words, rather, he takes particular pride in his lack of magical ability. His accomplishments were won fairly. 

“Th-then why…” the Demon trails off, head tilting to the side as he presumably tries to assess Technoblade’s stores of mana and finds them empty. 

Or completely absent. Technoblade isn’t sure how mana is supposed to work. 

“Why we-were you… li-like that, on your- uh, I could- I could hea-hear you from the… the… and he, uh, he was- but y-you were- and I didn’t think you’d ever-”

“It was consensual.” 

In a stunning upheaval of his normal speech pattern, Sykkuno interrupts the stuttering Demon. Still, his voice is tight with embarrassment, words running together in his haste to get them out before the demon could elaborate on what he’d heard. What he’d seen.

In retrospect, given what he’d walked in on, the Demon attempting to cleave Technoblade’s head from his shoulders was an understandable reaction, even from Technoblade’s perspective. 

“But- wh-who even is this guy?” 

From what Technoblade can see of the Demon’s features above his cowl, he looks absolutely mortified. Red blush is rapidly spreading over the bridge of his nose, blooming awkwardly bright across his deathly pale skin, and Technoblade finds himself surprised that Demons didn’t bleed black. Or, that whatever-creature-this-thing-classifies-as doesn’t bleed black. 

Sykkuno makes a series of incoherent mumbling noises, nervously shifting in Technoblade’s lap. The movement suddenly reminds the both of them that the King’s half-hard cock is still trapped inside the Mage, and the pair shudder for a moment before Sykkuno twists his head back to look sideways at Technoblade’s face resting on his shoulder. 

Technoblade tilts his head to look back at the Mage’s flushed face, considering for a moment before turning to the Demon with personal boundary issues. 

“Technoblade,” he replies in a monotone before dragging Sykkuno back from where he’d slowly slid down in his lap, holding him securely against his chest. 

When no other information was forthcoming, Sykkuno started on another series of mumbles, ending with the half-hopeful offering of “He’s a friend of Dream’s”, at which both Technoblade and the demon immediately grimace. 

“Friend is a very strong word,” Technoblade hastily clarifies, eyeing the Demon with renewed wariness. Daedric horrors wielding claymores the length of their bodies were bad enough, but Daedric horrors that knew Dream were not things Technoblade wished to be on the same plane of existence as. 

“Tha-that explains nothing! His relationship with Dream has absolutely no bearing on why he’s in your bed, unless you’ve decided to fuck all of Dream’s friends and it’s somehow escaped my notice.” 

The Demon’s voice is just as low and rumbling as the growling noise he’d started off with, but it’s shaking with such an unrestrained kind of acrimony that Technoblade wonders who this creature is to Sykkuno. Until now, he hadn’t particularly cared to understand whatever relationship dynamic would lead the Demon to repeatedly question Technoblade’s right to be in the Mage’s bed beyond the assurance that he was welcome in it.

“Not Dream’s friend,” Technoblade adds, an almost absent-minded reflex, and earns himself the acidic sting of the Demon’s- of Corpse’s attention. It’s almost creepy how someone without distinguishable irises or pupils could broadcast the object of his focus like that, but Corpse manages. 

Technoblade supposes it has something to do with the very different emotions bought about by his and Sykkuno’s faces. 

“In his defence, there isn’t much more introduction the little Mage can give. We met yesterday.”

With a heavy clink, the claymore is pulled free of the stone floor and swung around to hover level with Technoblade’s face, blood spattering across the green sheild of Sykkuno’s magic that had sputtered into existence a split second before. The accuracy and grace with which the demon hauled the weapon around was unnerving, as was why Sykkuno had chosen to protect them from the blood that trickled over the blade. 

“Yesterday?” 

There’s a tortured edge to Corpse’s voice, a hysteria that makes Technoblade want to stomp down.

“Yeah, why?” Technoblade laughs before he gently rolls his hips, startling a gasp out of Sykkuno and sneering at the Demon from over his shoulder. “How long have _you_ known him?” 

All Technoblade hears before something warm and overwhelming pulls his consciousness down into a black, dreamless sleep is awful, inhuman growling and the clink of metal swinging. 

\--

Sykkuno’s reflexes are faster than most people expect.

Not that many people talk to him long enough for their perception of him to come up in conversation. His interactions with other humans are largely limited to divine mutilation in the name of his Gods. Demons aren’t particularly talkative either, often preferring to screech vile torrents of ancient Daedric in his head rather than engage him in civil conversation whenever he visits his Lady’s court. 

Corpse occupies the narrow category of Demons that have moved on from such methods of communicating with him and now allow Sykkuno to call them his friends. He hadn’t ever once made reference to Sykkuno’s human frailty, but the Mage knows what the Demon thinks of him. 

Short as his visits to Sykkuno’s dungeon were, unfortunately matched in both their duration and frequency with Sykkuno’s visits to their Lady's plane of Oblivion, the Demon and Mage had still shared thousands of conversations. In five centuries of idle pleasantries, shared grievances regarding Daedric culture and half-serious arguments, Corpse hadn’t ever compared the capabilities of their physical forms. 

Sykkuno had supposed Corpse thought he was being polite. 

After all, as Demons went, Corpse was a rare combination of both young and polite, which had led to the more unfortunate combination of obstinate-confidence-in-his-own-knowledge but too-deferent-to-his-elders-to-argue. As a result, Corpse had made certain assumptions about Sykkuno’s body, hollowed out and stuffed with Daedric grace, when compared to the form Corpse had crafted for himself and then considered it too rude to ever ask for confirmation. 

A vindictive little edge on Sykkuno’s fabricated soul hopes that the hollow thunk of _Valtha’ranir_ sinking into the energy of his _Hylith_ -barrier is confirmation enough. 

Corpse might have built himself a body out of dead men’s curses - volatile and depraved things, not to mention mutinous - and might walk this earth with their Lady’s sanctification to kill what he pleases, but Sykkuno still has a good four-hundred years of Daedric cultivation on him. 

That, and he would have bet his entire collection of vylth-amethysts on Corpse losing his temper and lunging. In fact, if Corpse _hadn’t_ tried to skewer Technoblade after what he said, Sykkuno would need to check he wasn’t a particularly convincing illusion spell. 

The short splice of time between Technoblade running his mouth and Corpse snapping was more than enough to press his hand to the back of Technoblade’s head, sending the foul-mouthed King down into the depths of sleep while conjuring _Hylith_ energy with his other hand, easily catching Corpse’s oversized sword.

His friend scowls down at him after the shock of his attack failing wears off. Sykkuno finds he misses the barely-there widening of Corpse’s black eyes, the way his focus shifted from Technoblade’s head hanging over Sykkuno’s shoulder down to where his weapon was ensnared in viscous magic. 

“You shouldn’t let him taunt you like that,” Sykkuno admonishes, only half-serious, dispelling his magic and turning his attention to the sleeping King slumped over his shoulder. 

As he’d hoped, Technoblade had sunk down without resistance. This had the unfortunate consequence of immediately draping the King’s slumbering weight over Sykkuno’s shoulders. With a little hastily-crafted framework of energy through his abdominal muscles, Sykkuno managed not to buckle under the added weight, leaving the sleeping Technoblade delicately curled around the Mage. 

Silk-smooth strands of peach-pink hair tumble over Sykkuno’s chest, falling over the King’s peaceful face. The Mage can’t resist brushing them aside, tucking them gently behind Technoblade’s pointed ear, smiling at the faint blush still hanging over his cheekbones.

“Yeah, well, thank fuck you’re not the authority on letting him do things. Would be awful hypocritical,” Corpse sneers, twisting his wrist and slicing _Valtha’ranir_ through the fabric of reality, tearing open a howling void into which the claymore obediently disappears, the ragged edges of existence quickly knitting back together.

“Y’know, considering you’ve let him do whatever he wanted to you after knowin’ him a whole fuckin’ day.” 

“Be reasonable, Corpse, that’s hardly comparable with attempting to behead an unarmed, mortal _guest_ twice in as many minutes.” 

The Demon splutters behind his cloak, glowering at Sykkuno’s fingers gently carding though Technoblade’s hair. The Mage absently wonders if Corpse has ever intentionally spoken with this savage crudeness around him before, let alone addressed him with it. He’d heard Corpse argue with his brothers and sisters, seen him fight demons devoted to other Daedric Princes, but Corpse had always spoken to Sykkuno so gently. 

“Oh, I see- so, the next Jal'gyn Solstice you invite me over for, when I show up to the sounds of you getting fucked by that pig-freak whelp ‘til you’re a defiled mess on his diseased cock, I should do what, exactly? Fuck off home and hope that, despite not taking any lovers for the better part of a millenium, you’ve suddenly gained a fascination with swine-cock?” 

Apparently, Corpse was done with speaking gently. 

Corpse also seemed to be done with knowing which day it was.

“It’s- Corpse, no, tomorrow is Jal'gyn Solstice.”

Technoblade had smashed his way into Sykkuno’s dungeon two days before the Solstice. While crafting _Gelgtholath_ had taken longer than Sykkuno had anticipated, owing entirely to Technoblade’s interference, it couldn’t currently be any later than the evening before the Solstice. 

“Sykkuno,” Corpse sighs, a desperate whine in his deep voice. “You’re doing this on purpose, right? You’re fuckin’ torturing me with this- _Today_ is Jal'gyn Solstice. It’s morning here. I know you only bother to wind the clocks in your forge, so I’m guessing you’ve been down here... a while... lo-lost track of time...”

Corpse trails off, a petulant kind of disgust saturating his tone before something cruel flashes across his face. “Pig got a long refractory period, huh? Or did the grunting fuck put you to sleep?”

Sykkuno’s fingers twitch, tugging on the pastel threads of Technoblade’s hair that wrap around them. The King makes a soft sound in his sleep, sighing into Sykkuno’s skin in protest.

“Neither,” the Mage replies, disentangling both his hands and his attention from the King’s hair and flicking his gaze up to the eight-hundred-year-old Demon throwing a particularly vulgar tantrum. 

The slight shudder that runs over Corpse’s shoulders at the ice in his glare is satisfying, and Sykkuno has to fight to keep it frozen, keep himself from melting and apologising. “I’d prefer to talk about this like adults, so if you wouldn’t mind clearing those books off of the armchairs, I’ll get dressed.”

Corpse just blinks at him, still frozen a sword’s-length from the bed until Sykkuno quietly calls his name. He startles into movement, stepping jerkily backwards before spinning on his heel and stomping over to the hearth. 

Sykkuno sighs, gently picking up Technoblade’s head from his shoulder and tipping his unwieldy body backwards, fighting a hiss when the movement jostles the King’s softened cock inside him. Gingerly pushing himself up onto his knees and out of Technoblade’s lap, Sykkuno mournfully glances over his shoulder at the slick mess of come and cinder oil decorating the other man’s abdomen and thighs, at the length of his heavy cock stretching over his pale, rose-blushed skin. 

After throwing an errant corner of the duvet over the sleeping King, Sykkuno steps into black trousers summoned from the trunk under his bed, grimacing as he remembers where the clothes he’d worn earlier this morning lie abandoned on the stone floor of his forge. 

Not that he knew it was morning when he’d let Technoblade strip him. 

He really ought to enchant a pocketwatch to follow him around. 

Drowning in a woolen sweater he’d never had the need nor desire to wear in the decades after Lily had pressed the thick, lime green monstrosity into his arms, Sykkuno quietly pads over to where Corpse is slumped over the back of an armchair. Sullenly glaring into the smouldering hearth, he’s leaning on forearms braced over the wooden frame while his hands are shrouded in void-magic. He doesn’t seem to notice that the books ensnared in his spell are spinning worryingly, tumbling through the air on a tight axis and appearing thoroughly possessed. 

Before Sykkuno can call his name, Corpse’s head snaps around to face him, unnaturally fast. 

Sykkuno supposes Technoblade was unnerved by Corpse’s eyes. He’d felt the King’s arms tighten around his waist when Corpse had turned his attention away from Sykkuno and focused on him instead. The ambiguity in the Demon’s gaze was dangerous for people like Technoblade. Uncertainty over where your opponent is looking means losing the most reliable predictor of their next movement. 

To Sykkuno, who would stake his own life on the claim that Corpse wouldn’t ever consider him an adversary, Corpse’s eyes were more familiar than his own bones. There’s a particular depth to darkness granted form by Namira, an invisible pull on Sykkuno’s borrowed soul that reminds him both his and Corpse’s existences are dependent on the same divine will. 

He also knows Corpse’s face well enough to correctly guess the object of his attention most of the time, which, at this unfortunate moment, happens to be the ragged edges of Technoblade’s teeth marks in his skin. 

“There something stopping you healing those?” he asks, voice strained and careful. The books in his grasp start to tear along their bindings, and Sykkuno hurries to pull them out of his magic, bright emerald runes swarming over the purple-black bubbles of Corpse’s mana.

“M-m-maybe you shoul- can you _let go_ \- maybe you should just sit down, Corpse, please?” 

Sykkuno dissolves the last of Corpse’s destabilised magic, retrieving his damaged books and knitting their bindings back together before sending them off to another corner of his room. Thankfully, Corpse seems to notice the restoration magic, his expression shifting into something contrite but still petulant and flops down into the armchair. 

“So either you like them or the pig asked you not to,” he mutters, yanking at the buckles that hold the pauldron and cloak over his right shoulder and throwing them over a wing of the chair, the sharp metal plates of his armour stabbing into the leather.

Sykkuno stamps down on the urge to remind the Demon that the chesterfield is older than he is by a good couple centuries and folds himself into the other one, reviving the hearth with a twist of his fingers. 

“Corpse,” he sighs, waiting until the Demon looks up from his neck to his eyes before continuing. “I’m sorry that you walked in on… _this_ ,” he gestures vaguely. “Your reaction was understandable, given your perspective.”

“Then explain _your_ perspective,” Corpse spits. “Because from mine it’s either a radical change in character or some fucker sunk hooks into your soul and rigged you up on some strings. Granted, not _that_ fucker,” he jerks a thumb over his shoulder, “who somehow has negative mana.”

“Oh, n-no, it’s just very weak. It looks negative when he’s surrounded by enchantments.” 

Corpse makes an unimpressed noise, staring blankly at the Mage for a few moments before impatiently clicking his tongue and jerking his chin for Sykkuno to get on with it.

“Alright, uh, he… I guess he classifies as a ‘warlord’? I mean, he’s a King in the absolute loosest sense of the title. Probably the oldest sense, actually. His lands border George’s over on the- Corpse, you know George. He’s Dream’s King.” 

Sykkuno interrupts himself when Corpse’s nose scrunches with confusion, and struggles for a few moments to remember whether the pair had ever actually met.

“No, you do know him! Poki’s coronation, remember?” 

The Demon only blinks at him, the cruel edge that still haunted his features finally smoothing out as he tries to remember. “Oh, that- wait, I thought Dream was the King.”

“George was the one in the crown, Corpse.” The adorable nose scrunch melts into a look of exasperation, and Sykkuno finds himself mourning its loss. 

“I’ll pay more attention to human trinkets in the future, okay, get to the damned point.”

“They’re not _that_ different to Daedric trinkets, y’know, but the point is Techno has both enough of a relationship with Dream that he would tell him where to find me if asked, and enough of a reason to be seeking an _Ivathlan_.” 

Corpse’s void-eyes narrow at the Daedric title, the pitch of his voice rising with incredulity. “What kind of- you haven’t smithed for a human King since those mad fuckers years ago. What’s this idiot doing looking for _Ivathlan_?” 

“He found one of my journals,” Sykkuno laughs, happy to finally share this absurdity with someone who understands the implications of Technoblade’s demands. “Said he liked the sketches of _Gelgtholath._ Found someone to translate my notes well enough to figure out what it does. Then, I suppose he bargained with Dream for where to find it.”

“Fuck that.” Corpse spits. “I refuse to believe Dream would tell that swine how to find you. He knows how careful you are, how much effort it takes to keep your weapons hidden. He wouldn’t just give you away without permission.”

“Ah, that’s the thing, he didn’t.” Sykkuno’s heart twists at the way Corpse’s indignation sputters out, his lips uncurling from a sneer into another look of abject confusion. 

“All Dream did was tell him how to find the valley and to look for a cave. Nothing else.” A deep sense of empathy tugs in Sykkuno’s chest with the bewildered noise the Demon makes. “I don’t even think Techno could _see_ the labyrinth markings, let alone solve anything before he destroyed the entire valley. The sentinels never registered him because his mana is so far below the threshold. Spent months blindly ripping his way through jungle before I noticed he was up there, and by that point he’d already broken the seal on the cave by physically smashing it to pieces.”

Sykkuno sighs, lamenting the gaping Technoblade-shaped hole in his defenses. The King’s skillset wasn’t something he’d anticipated when building them and countered them perfectly.

“It was a very confusing afternoon for me, okay?” he complains, hands nervously pulling at the long sleeves of his sweater. “And-and, _after that_ , he just leaps down the acramanthi conduit! Falls straight down it, not even bothering to read the controls and demolishes one of my leviathans. Poor thing’s guts broke his fall. Then- _then_ I figured the Sarzonath portal would keep him out and he’d just starve to death up there, but _no_ , no, he’s got a fulbright blade with enough energy to activate the runes if he _stabs the panels hard enough_.”

“Fulbright?” There’s an alarmed edge to Corpse’s voice, one that, again, Sykkuno feel a profound empathy with.

“Yeah, Dream told him that much at least, but he either severely underestimates Techno’s persistence or he just wanted to distract him for a while, make everything harder than it needed to be.” 

The Knight’s motivations often seemed contradictory to others, even to Sykkuno. Whatever he orchestrated was always inscrutable up until it was too late to escape it. 

“I’d bet on the latter, since Dream didn’t warn me about him. Actually, third option, Dream knew Techno would make it down here eventually and hoped I’d kill hi-” 

“Seems reasonable,” Corpse interrupts sharply. “I ought to honour my good friend’s wish-”

“- come on, you haven’t seen Dream in years,” Sykkuno cuts the Demon off, frowning up at him after he freezes, half-unfolded from his slump in Sykkuno’s armchair. 

With a huff, Corpse collapses back down, sheathing the blade he’d pulled with unnecessary force, the leather of his holster creaking. “So you felt sorry for the trespassing pig, let him live and then pity-fucked him?” He lists the junctures of his imagined timeline on his clawed fingertips with a derisive flourish. “Riveting story, Sykkuno, makes absolutely no sense.”

“Makes no sense because that isn’t what happened,” Sykkuno grumbles, returning Corpse’s sneer for a moment before it slips away, his face unused it. “I let him live because I had no reliable way of killing him. You have any idea how hard it is to target someone with no magical signature? I had enough trouble setting up a telepathic link to ask him, politely, what he thought he was doing.

“And I don’t make a habit of handing off god-killing waraxes to whoever drops by. Not that I get many opportunities to build up such a habit, but then he starts _wandering around_ ,” Sykkuno complains, gesturing wildly, his sleeves pulled over his wrists by nervous fingers. 

“Wandering around with the same sword that skewered my leviathan until he finds a thrice-damned _temple_ , and I had to intervene befo-”

“You should have called me.” 

Corpse’s voice is burning with a cold kind of flame, his interruption scalding Sykkuno, the ferocity behind it making him feel small and foolish.

“It was one human,” he objects. “A particularly destructive human, but still- _one mortal_. Though, I’ll grant you, at that point I slightly underestimated how fast they can be and then all of a sudden he had me at swordpoint.”

The cold fire in Corpse’s voice had matched his blank expression. Before, only a vague disdain had marred his features, but now his face warps in fury and Sykkuno cringes, scambling to salvage his explanation.

“Luckily all he wanted was the waraxe-” 

“Not _all_ he wanted-” 

“-so I smithed one for him.” Sykkuno grimaces, raising his voice slightly to talk over Corpse. Something he rarely had to do. The Demon winces, jaw snapping shut on his words and clenching tight, waiting for Sykkuno to continue. 

“A-at some point after I got started, he… uh, asked where the baths were, so I showed him to the hot spring and got back to work. But I-I- uhm... apparently, I f-forgot to cut the tether and- uh, he… _unknowingly_ , he projected certain, uh, thou-thoughts into my head.”

An awkward silence stretches between them, the tension deepening as Corpse’s mouth twists progressively further into a sneer, his eyes dropping to the wounds curling around Sykkuno’s neck, peeking out from the high collar of his sweater. 

Before Corpse can voice whatever vitriol is forming in his head that’s pushing his face into such an ugly expression, Sykkuno stammers out more words to fill the silence. 

“He seemed ki-kinda, uh, pent up? From the jungle, I-I mean, he was up there for a while and-and you know how hu-humans get...” the Mage’s words peter out as he runs up against the edge of having to describe Technoblade’s thoughts, how they spiraled into a manic kind of lust as the King pleasured himself. The voyeuristic shadow of euphoria that flit down Sykkuno’s spine when he felt Technoblade make himself come. 

“You mean to tell me,” Corpse starts, jaw tight as he pulls another blade from a holster around his thigh, “that you’ll roll over and spread your legs for whoever holds you at swordpoint and projects their frustrated fantasies into your head?” 

There’s a demented grind to his quiet voice, reflecting the tension that runs through the Demon’s entire body. Sykkuno can see it in the awkward angles of his joints where his limbs are sprawled in the chair, one leg thrown over an armrest and his shoulders slumped down against the backrest. 

“Because I can do that,” he mumbles, unnaturally-blank eyes focused on his hands, staring through them. “I think I’m uniquely fuckin’ qualified to do that.”

If Sykkuno had only glanced at him, only spared him only a few seconds of attention for a quick greeting as he passed by, he probably wouldn’t have noticed the strain in Corpse’s expression. The forced nonchalance in the arrangement of his body. But Sykkuno can see it. The tremble in his jaw as he flicks the knife over in his hands, the movement ostensibly absent. His fingers shake, the blade slicing through his palm every few swipes. 

“Sykkuno,” he starts, head jerking up to face the Mage again. The knife sails recklessly over his fingers, the instability of it matching his voice.

“I never thought you were interested in… in any of this. You’ve been alone for so long. When-when I would ask anyone about you, they’d tell me you were either chronically oblivious or asexual or both, so I-I kept… I-I- fuck, you never took any notice of me trailing after you like a lovesick idiot.” 

His feigned restraint dissolving, Corpse gets louder. 

“Fuck, Sykkuno, why do you think our Lady lets me come and go as I please? Why she granted me a body to shape however I wanted?” He grimaces, dragging his razor-sharp teeth over his bottom lip as he holds Sykkuno’s startled gaze, obsessed. 

“Cruel God wants to watch my heart die, watch me impale myself on unrequited love until I figure out I can’t have you.”

The raw confession hangs in the air, out of place in the hearth-warm quiet of Sykkuno’s cluttered bedroom. Even Corpse himself seems out of place, larger than his body. An exiled God, immaculate white horns winding their way out of his skull in a divine crown. Glittering chains falling from his ears and waist like sanctified treasures, precious metals and gemstones made more valuable for their contact with his skin. 

“And it hurts so much more now. Knowing it’s not because you don’t feel attraction, or that you’re just not attracted to men. I can’t have you because you don’t want _me_. Specifically.” 

The heartsick Demon drops the Mage’s gaze, the muscles of his jaw working as they clench his mouth shut, stifling any other admissions that longed to bubble up to the surface and further ruin their friendship. 

“Corpse,” Sykkuno whispers, gentle and quiet after the Demon’s words tumble to a halt. “You never said-”

“Said?” Corpse hisses, the delicate levee that held more embarrassing words from spilling over his tongue crumbling at Sykkuno’s attempt to console him. 

“What was I supposed to say to you? That I- that I wanted more than your friendship? That I’m the greedy motherfucker who’d take your companionship and still demand more of you, impose my vile self on your endless fuckin’ compassion and manipulate my way into fucking you? Slither and corrupt my way into your body just to satisfy myself? I’d choke to death on my own fuckin’ avarice before I could get the words out.”

Corpse spits his words out, eyes still lowered to the hearth as the knife in his hand slices his skin open, successively lacerating the backs of his knuckles and palm in delicate little scores of red. Blood whispers over his skin, quietly spilling as Corpse splits his heart open to his oldest friend. It slicks his grip until the knife falls, burying itself between metacarpals.

Sykkuno, who had sat frozen in the overwhelming presence of Corpse’s words, crashes into motion at the sight of his impaled hand, darting forward out of the chair and onto his knees. 

Falling into a panicked heap at Corpse’s feet, the Mage seizes his wrist, magic seeping into the Demons blood to disintegrate the curse carried by the blade before it can wreak any damage on its master’s body. His other hand wraps around the blood-slick handle, pushing a binding spell into it to force a grip on the metal before yanking it out of the Demon’s hand with a wordless sound of distress. 

Corpse remains silent. Didn’t make a single sound when he stabbed himself, nor when the blade is wrenched free and burning magic floods into the wound. Apparently, all his words were spent, wasted on lamenting his unrequited feelings without once asking Sykkuno how he felt. 

“Corpse,” Sykkuno starts, voice sharp as he knits the obstinate Demon’s flesh together. The sound of his name seems to snap Corpse out of whatever comatose headspace he’d fallen into, a quiet whimper making it through his clenched teeth as his eyes shift from his hand to Sykkuno’s face. 

“Corpse, if you don’t tell me how you feel then I don’t know how you feel,” the Mage scolds, wrapping his hands around the Demon’s newly-healed skin and leaning into the space between his spread legs. 

“It’s a straightforward problem. You can’t simultaneously complain about me not noticing your feelings _and_ that telling me is too scary. Not to mention, our friends were right - I _am_ ‘chronically oblivious’ when it comes to your incomprehensible hints because I’ve never thought you were a lovesick idiot, let alone an idiot lovesick over me.” 

What had been a dusting of pink over Corpse’s nose and cheekbones flourishes into vivid red, blossoming awkwardly over his skin and clashing with the inky mess of his hair. The effect is worsened by the black abysses of his eyes, widened and shining in the hearthlight. Sykkuno hadn’t thought the inescapable dark of Corpse’s eyes could reflect anything.

“So you don’t get to sit here and declare your love unrequited when you never even- actually, you know what? I’d rather you _had_ just projected your thoughts into my head, leaves far less room for misinterpreta-”

Sykkuno’s words cut out as the world falls away. For a split second, everything in his vision is thrown into high contrast. Gut-wrenchingly saturated colours blur together in a haze that feels like it’s burning across his retinas, even though Sykkuno is sure his eyelids are shut tight. It gives way to sudden and complete darkness, vision taken from him at the same time as all his other senses. 

Daedric mana is intrinsically destructive. 

Crafting illusions with it is akin to stitching a wound closed with thread spun from fire. Not only was it not particularly good at the function you were trying to force it to perform, most of the time it also actively degraded whatever progress you might make. Accordingly, Sykkuno either avoided illusion spells altogether or used artifacts enchanted by others as power sources. 

Corpse had no other choice but to use his own mana. And, considering Sykkuno wasn’t immediately killed by his illusion, he was doing quite well.

There were some advantages accorded to the Mage’s constitution, being made of the same divine energy as the energy invading his body. However, the Demon seemed to be naturally adept at stabilising his mana as it swirls around Sykkuno’s mind, surprisingly gentle for such a reckless caster. Even so, Sykkuno threads a protective cage around the boundaries of the spell, ready to reverse any damages as they occur.

After a heartbeat spent suspended in the void, Corpse’s projection crashes into Sykkuno’s head, returning him to the familiarity of his book-strewn bedroom. 

Instead of kneeling at Corpse’s feet by the hearth, however, Sykkuno finds himself spread out on his bed, in the same space that Technoblade currently occupied. 

Much like the King, he finds himself entirely naked against the black duvet. The illusion seems to take over all of his senses, and the Mage marvels at the solidness of the cotton against his skin. Caught up in the whiplash of sudden sensation, he’s caught by surprise as something wet and impossibly warm envelops his cock. 

Head snapping down, he finds Corpse’s head between his legs. 

The Demon’s dark curls brush against the insides of Sykkuno’s thighs as he gently lowers his head, his cheeks slightly hollowed out as he sucks carefully, bare shoulders just visible between Sykkuno’s spread legs. The delightful blush has carried over from Corpse’s real form, deepening in colour as Sykkuno gasps and reaches down to run fingers through the Demon’s hair. 

His teeth must be carefully tucked away, or converted to blunt little human ones, because all Sykkuno can feel is his black tongue, so much warmer than Technoblade’s had been. He supposes it’s something Daedric, the heat of Corpse’s mana burning through his body as his fingers run over the Demon’s scalp to the base of his horns. Tugging gently on them produces a low, guttural sound around the head of his cock, shoved against the back of Corpse’s throat, and Sykkuno squirms.

The Mage pushes himself up on an elbow to stare at the Demon between his thighs, his other hand refusing to relinquish its hold on the Demon’s horn, using it to hold Corpse’s mouth steady while he tentatively thrusts his hips upwards.

With a muffled laugh around Sykkuno’s cock, Corpse pushes his chest back down. Instead of hitting soft duvet, Sykkuno’s shoulders thud against the solid edges of a bookshelf. The world blurs around him for a moment until he finds himself pushed up against one of the stacks in his library, arms thrown around Corpse’s bare shoulders while his thighs are held up and spread apart for the Demon’s cock. 

Flailing in surprise at the sudden change, Sykkuno’s head smacks into the shelf behind, jaw falling open on a punched-out moan as his hole stretches out impossibly quickly. Corpse laughs again, bright and clear this time since his mouth is unoccupied, and Sykkuno’s heart twists at the sound. 

However many times he’s heard it, Corpse’s laugh always seemed jarring to Sykkuno, clear of the gravel in his voice, like the edge of something hidden underneath. But now, hearing a breathless version of it as Corpse’s face contorts in pleasure, his jaw hanging open as his hips lose all sense of restraint, a feeling of longing spreads through Sykkuno’s chest. 

It’s soon replaced by the liquid fire that runs along his nerves as Corpse finds the right angle, breath catching in his throat for a second before he can cry out, tongue wet with half-formed curses and the Demon’s name. 

Even as Corpse spreads his legs open wider, puts more of his weight behind his thrusts and bends his head to whisper promises in Sykkuno’s ear, the Mage still notices the thrum of magic singing around them. The shelves in this particular dark corner of Sykkuno’s library hold the most valuable of his Daedric texts. Many were written by long-dead scribes of the Princes themselves, burning with an ancient kind of magic that only becomes stronger with time. 

Apparently, also the kind of magic that responds to the garbled Daedric that Corpse is mumbling into his neck, cursing in his native tongue while he fucks his swollen cock into Sykkuno. The books on the stack behind Corpse are spilling thick black smoke, little sparks of red lightning arcing over the haze as it pools on the floor, curling around the Demon’s ankles. 

A thread of intense belonging winds its way around Sykkuno’s heart and pulls taut, his breath catching as the Daedric magic pulses, welcoming them both.

Sykkuno sobs, futilely straining against Corpse’s hands on his thighs to try and roll his hips into the flat of Demon’s bare stomach, push his neglected cock against something warm and smooth before he goes mad with the feeling of Daedric cock scraping over his prostate. His pitiful whining rouses the Demon buried in his neck, who raises his head, slowly, contrasting with the blinding force of his thrusts. 

Smiling at whatever he sees on Sykkuno’s face, he cruelly halts his movements, holding Sykkuno steady against the bookshelf as he pulls his cock free. The Mage barely has time enough to groan out a protest before he’s dropped from Corpse’s arms and spun around. 

The scene lurches, the dark wood of the shelves blurring until the world stabilises again and he finds himself trapped against black stone. Corpse’s body crowds in behind him, kicking open his legs again and pulling his hips back. Sykkuno scrambles against the wall in front of him, looking down at the robes falling off his shoulders.

Inlaid with gleaming silver, the dark fabric of his ceremonial cloak has fallen down to his elbows, the various layers of his other robes disheveled and undone around his chest. Glancing over his shoulder at the Demon behind him, the one spreading his asscheeks apart with one hand and lining up his cock with the other, he realises that this fantasy is set at Poki’s coronation. 

Corpse’s ceremonial armour is still secure around his shoulders, the obsidian plate metal shining in the low light of the alcove he’s pushed Sykkuno into. Jagged, graceful spikes spread out over his shoulders, leaving his chest bare but for the golden warpaint on his skin.

Sykkuno catches a flash of _Valtha’ranir_ ’s pommel jutting up over his shoulder before his attention in yanked down. Down to the tapering edges of Corpse’s abdomen, muscles that lead to the cock buried inside of him, the hard expanse of warm skin that grinds against the softness of his ass as the Demon whines and sheathes himself again. The delicate silver chains that would normally hang around Corpse’s waist have been replaced by heavy gold, matching the chains wrapped around his horns and the paint on his chest. 

His belts have been yanked open, pushed down just far enough over his thighs to pull his cock free. In that, the pair match, Sykkuno’s trousers clinging around his spread thighs while his layers of robes lifted and bundled to rest in the dip of his spine, undressed just enough to get his hole spread open on Daedric cock while their dear friends celebrate the Queen’s ascension. 

Even though their state of undress seems roughly equivalent, Sykkuno feels far more disheveled, his necklaces tangling with the opened collars of his robes, apparently spread open for Corpse’s teeth to press bitemarks into the soft skin of his chest before spinning him around. The same teeth that scrape against the shell of his ear as the Demon crushes him against the wall, pinning Sykkuno’s shoulders with his chest, leaving his hands free to wrap around the Mage’s hip bones and hold him upright as he fucks. His long fingers are spread out over the join of thigh and pelvis, pushing Sykkuno’s spine into a sharper arch as he drives his cock in harder, the slick noises of wet skin colliding punctuating each thrust along with Sykkuno’s breathless little cries as he’s fucked into the wall. 

Corpse’s sharp mouth is hanging open, letting free a frantic string of moans and half-formed curses, his eyes clouded pits of delirious lust as he knocks his forehead against Sykkuno’s temple. 

Sykkuno wonders whether an illusion like this can actually make either of them come, and moans as he realises what a waste that would be. How much better it would feel to have Corpse spill inside of him and know that it wouldn’t just disappear when the magic dissolves. 

“Corpse,” he gasps, abandoning his tenuous grip on the rough stone to reach behind him and take a hold of one of the Demon’s horns. _How useful these are_ , he thinks, his fingers tangling in thick chains. “Y-y-you have to s-stop.” 

“Don’t want me to stop,” he replies, rhythm switching to slower, harder thrusts that knock the air out of Sykkuno’s lungs. “Cock’s hard and leaking between your pretty thighs, Sykkuno, can’t lie to me.”

“N- _ngh_ -not… not what I- _fuck_ \- not real, Corpse, ughn- better if it’s real-”

The fantasy dissolves instantly, the warmth of the _Thrirmen_ stone against his cheek disappearing along with the distant chatter and music echoing from the great hall. Sykkuno almost regrets asking Corpse to end his spell, a profound emptiness and sharp clarity racing through his mind as he’s unceremoniously dropped back into his body. 

He doesn’t even have time to mourn the loss of Corpse’s imagined body heat because the Demon is immediately in his lap, having launched himself from the chair and scrambled to put his knees either side of Sykkuno’s. The Mage gasps, still disoriented as his face is angled upwards, his jaw caught in the Demon’s hands to face the terrifying intensity in Corpse’s eyes. 

“Y-you get it, don’t you?” he asks desperately, curling his body inwards to knock his forehead against Sykkuno’s, to hold the Mage still as he searches the Mage’s eyes. “Isn’t it better with someone that loves you?” 

His voice is wrecked, guttural and breaking over his words, whispered out over Sykkuno’s lips. “Fuck you better than that fumbling whelp could, barely-grown pig,” he hisses, dragging his fingers over the ragged edges of Technoblade’s teeth marks that decorate the skin of Sykkuno’s nape. “Can’t fuckin’ stand these, Syk. Let me cover ‘em with mine, I’ll mark you up so pretty- wanna petrify that fucker and make him watch, show him how loud you get for me.”

Sykkuno whimpers, spine arching uncomfortably as Corpse tilts his head back to expose his neck, promises ghosting over his throat. “Wa-wait-”

He only needs to get a single syllable out, a breathless stutter before Corpse is freezing, the heat in his eyes seizing up with panic. “Fuck, I-I’m- I’ll just heal them, it’s okay if that’s too much, I’ll take whatev-”

“No! No, not what I meant!” Sykkuno exclaims, hands sliding up Corpse’s bare sides and over the smooth fabric of his tunic in what he hopes is a soothing manner. “You have got to start letting me finish my sentences, God’s sake. I was _going_ to saythat you wouldn’t have to petrify him.”

Corpse just blinks adorably. Bewildered and still kneeling on top of Sykkuno’s lap, still possessively curled over him, cradling the Mage’s head in his hands. Sykkuno giggles, taking a hold of the Demon’s wrists and pressing a featherlight kiss to the inside of one of them before continuing. 

“I know you felt it though the spell, but it bears repeating. I am attracted to you, Corpse, of course I am. While my feelings are a little tangled together, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to distinguish romantic and platonic love when it comes to you, you should at least recognise that I care very deeply for you.” 

The Demon’s eyes are shining again, heathlight dancing in the darkness before he blinks, his eyelashes clumping together wetly.

“I’d also very much like to fuck you outside of a dreamscape,” Sykkuno laughs, his chuckles getting louder at the shiver that runs through Corpse’s body. “Or get fucked, either. But I interrupted you to ask if you wanted to help me with something first.”

\-- 

Technoblade wakes up slowly.

There’s a fire crackling somewhere nearby. 

Running on coal or maybe something magic because Technoblade can’t smell even a hint of smoke and he knows he isn’t in the same room as he went to sleep in. 

It feels bigger. The air against his skin running in currents, barely-perceptible but nothing like the stillness of Sykkuno’s bedroom. Weirdly, the air is cooler than the rock he’s laid out on, rough and warm against his back like the stones of a hearth. 

As his awareness meanders down his spine and into his limbs he realises his arms are stretched out above his head, the muscles of his shoulders bunching and pressing into the rock. His wrists are pressed together, way above his head, and by the way the blood vessels in his arms are slowly going dead Technoblade figure’s they’ve been like that for a while. 

Same with his legs, the muscles in his hips numb from the way his ankles are tied to the tops of his thighs. There’s something else holding his legs open, running from his knees outwards, keeping the tendons running down from his groin pulled taut. 

Technoblade isn’t sure what exactly it is that’s wrapped around his wrists and ankles. There isn’t any weight or texture to it, just gentle pressure when he pushes against it, like his limbs happened to be arranged this way. 

This wasn’t the time to panic.

This was the time to pretend to still be asleep, listen for voices, for breathing. Work out where the Mage or whoever it was that tied him up is skulking about, try to undo whatever is wrapped around his wrists without-

“I know you’re awake, Techno.”

Technoblade slowly, begrudgingly, opens his eyes. Sykkuno’s voice sounded like it was close by, and, sure enough, he blinks against the green torchlight to see the Mage sitting cross-legged on the rock beside him. 

“Don’t look at me like that, I knew because I woke you up, little King,” he laughs, voice still honey-sweet and clear despite the patronising tone, seeping deep into Technoblade’s chest. 

His tattoos are beautiful. Intricate trails of sharp runes carved into his skin, and Technoblade’s gaze dips down over his bare chest, flicking disappointedly over the black waistband of his trousers. 

“Where’s my cloak?”

Sykkuno lets out a surprised chuckle. “Well I had to clean it, that’s for sure,” he replies, leaning forwards on a hand against the stone between the cross of his legs to brush Technoblade’s hair back from his face. “I’ll return it to you after, don’t worry.”

It’s then that Technoblade realises his crown is gone. Sykkuno’s fingers are dragging across his scalp where his crown should be.

“Oh, it was a very impressive enchantment,” the Mage reassures, his voice sickly-sweet. “But I’m afraid it would just make him angrier.”

Technoblade’s breath catches in his throat. 

“You wanna elaborate on that or do you want me to ask?” he sneers, shaking his head free of the Mage’s fingers running through his hair. 

“He means me.” 

Technoblade still wants to hack his waraxe into that voice. See if he can make that terrifying sound die if he splits apart his ribs, tear his lungs in half and drown him in his own blood. It sounded like it was above him somewhere, and Technoblade jerks, twisting himself around to try and find the source, snarling.

“What’s wrong little piggy?” Corpse laughs, slowly walking around the edge of the rock slab Technoblade is tied down on and finally entering the edges of Technoblade’s vision. “Look like somethin’ spooked you.”

The Demon is sneering, black lips split out over his sawteeth and looking down his pretty nose at the King. He’s lost his cowl-neck cloak, shirtless and pale in the green torchlight as he walks around Technoblade’s body. 

“I’ll be honest,” Technoblade grits out, eyeing the Demon’s teeth warily. “Didn’t see this comin’.” 

“Oh, sorry, I had planned on doing this when you tried to leave, but Corpse dropping by moved up my schedule,” Sykkuno laughs, dragging Technoblade’s attention away from the hellspawn standing a few feet away from his spread legs.

“Was gonna summon up some Tagdrak to fuck you ‘till you cried,” he giggles. “Would’ve been fun to see you whining underneath a beast, but Corpse here has a very particular attribute that’ll make this even more fun.”

Technoblade hadn’t ever been afraid of the Mage until that moment. Creeped out by the sacrifices maybe, but that was closer to a sick sense of admiration than actual fear something similar would happen to him. But now, weaponless and crownless, Sykkuno’s fingers running through his hair even though he didn’t want them, Technoblade realises his sense of security was entirely false. 

“Plus, he actually kinda hates you, so I think this’ll be therapeutic for the both of you,” Sykkuno smiles. His fingers leave Technoblade’s hair, the backs of his knuckles ghosting over Technoblade’s rapidly rising and falling chest. 

“Well, okay, maybe not for you.”

The Mage’s amendment devolves into chuckles and he unfolds his legs, rolling off of the altar. Technoblade figures he must be laid out on the edge of a thick slab of rock. He can’t raise his head enough to see the edge beyond his legs, but it has to be fairly close, given where Corpse is standing. 

“You can go ahead and get started, if you want.”

Sykkuno’s already out of Technoblade’s field of view, tossing the offer over his shoulder as he abandons him to Corpse. The Demon’s blank eyes follow him, only turning on Technoblade after a few seconds, unblinking and boring a hole into his soul. 

If Technoblade had thought those eyes were unnerving when he had a lapful of protective Mage, he’s downright terrified of them now. 

“When this is over, I’m huntin’ you down and cuttin’ you in half.”

Technoblade’s standard response to things that scared him was to kill them quicker. Being stripped down and bound like a fucktoy was only delaying the inevitable.

“I really hope you do,” Corpse sneers, moving around the altar to lean over the edge Sykkuno had occupied. “‘Cause I’ll rip your delicate little mortal body apart. Slowly.” 

His knee comes up to rest on the surface, the muscles of his torso occupying a terrifyingly large portion of Technoblade’s vision as he reaches down to run a claw over one of his tusks. 

“Careful, mongrel.” Corpse laughs, retracting his fingers quickly as Technoblade’s head snaps up to bite them. “Pig blood in you is pretty weak if these are all you got. Didn’t see a tail either. Would’ve been fun to play with.”

“Why’re you obsessed with callin’ me pig-fucker and all that?” Technoblade hisses, wrenching his head away when the Demon tries to pull at his tusks again. “Every other word out of your fuckin’ mouth has ‘pig’ in it- what in the fuck is that thing.”

There isn’t enough time for Technoblade’s voice to lilt into a questioning tone, his words tumbling out in a rush as a black shadow appears over Corpse’s shoulder. It rises up behind him, his body pale and terrifying against the hazy blackness before part of it splits off, a skinny protrusion winding its way down over the Demon’s shoulder and into the air directly above Technoblade’s face.

“It’s me,” Corpse replies, the smile obvious in his voice even though Technoblade can’t see it, his world narrowed down to the alien thing hovering above his face. “My ‘very particular attribute’, as Sykkuno put it.”

The thing is a couple inches wide, perfectly cylindrical. Its edges are blurred, black vapour rising off the surface of it as it writhes in the air. 

“You wanna guess what I’m gonna do with it?” 

Technoblade would give anything in the world to wipe the smirk off of Corpse’s face. He barely manages to tear his eyes away from the… the _appendage_ to glare at the bastard’s smug expression. 

“No, but I’ll tell you what _I’m_ gonna do to _it_ once I get out of here, and I really hope it feels pain ‘cause I’m gon-”

The shadowy limb smothers the rest of Techoblade’s threat, Corpse’s hand moving unnaturally fast to press a thumb into the hinge of his open jaw, holding it open for the thing to dive inside of his mouth.

Iron floods over his tongue, and Technoblade panicks for a split second thinking it’s somehow cut his mouth open and he’s about to choke on his own blood before he realises that it’s just how the solidified shadows taste. 

“It does indeed feel pain, little Pig-King,” the Demon grins down at him, thumb pressing into the corner of his spread-open mouth. “Feels just like my own flesh. Which is why I’m gonna enjoy fucking you with it.”

The appendage in Technoblade’s mouth pushes against the back of his throat, writhing against his tongue for a second as he starts to gag before it retreats entirely. Corpse lets him cough and gasp for a few moments, the spit-slick darkness turning over in the air before snaking down over Technoblade’s abdomen, hovering just over the skin as it travels.

“With them, rather,” Corpse amends, several more limbs breaking off from the black mass behind him, winding their way around the Demon’s sides to join the first. 

“A-ah- y-y-y’know this- this really just makes me think your cock is just absolutely fuckin’ miniscule.” Technoblade stutters as the smooth darkness winds around his spread legs, one of the thinner limbs curling around the base of his soft cock and squeezing gently as others run over the join of thigh and hip, some brushing against the sensitive skin of his balls and lifting them up. “But I admire your commitment to overcompensatin’.” 

“Don’t fret, little King, you’ll get my cock.” Corpse pushes up off the altar to walk around Technoblade’s spread-out body and sit between his legs. The black ties around Technoblade’s knees pull them further apart, and the King suddenly realises his restraints are made of the same shadows, little tendrils of darkness spilling up into the air like oil. 

The thicker appendage settles between his legs, tapping gently against Technoblade’s hole while the one around the base of his cock spirals up his length, squeezing as it climbs and forcing a bitten-off gasp from the King. Corpse chuckles, winding the grip on Technoblade cock tighter as it hardens.

He can’t help it. The raw sensation wins out over his desperate desire to not have the Demon mock him, the tightness in his spine as his cock fills out overwhelming the noisier parts of his thoughts. 

“Oh, good timing.” 

Technoblade barely registers the Demon’s voice, hyperfocused on the slide of his shadowy limbs against his skin, so he jolts in alarm when Sykkuno’s smiling face appears over Corpse’s shoulder. 

“You work fast,” Sykkuno remarks, not even bothering to look at Technoblade’s face as he drops something into Corpse’s waiting hand, his attention thoroughly won over by whatever is happening between Technoblade’s legs. Snickering, the Demon turns the dark bottle over in his hand, uncorking it while Sykkuno leans over his shoulder. 

“Figured he’d be less annoying if he was stuffed full,” Corpse mumbles, his hands disappearing below Technoblade’s sightline even from where his head is partly propped up on his bicep. He quickly figures out the bottle contains some kind of oil when the cold liquid is lazily poured over his taint. 

Technoblade curses, his legs kicking out against his restraints while the Demon snickers again, technique apparently limited to dumping oil over the thickest member and letting it drip down onto the King. The slick, blunt edge of something pushes against his hole, feeling far wider than the limb than had dipped below his balls and Technoblade seriously considers whether the Demon would have augmented it after it disappeared from view just to freak him out. 

“Definitely sounds prettier when he gets his cock wet, so I suppose he should do, yeah.” 

Sykkuno’s voice is jarringly bright and Technoblade would like to curse at him but the thing between his legs suddenly writhes, pushing past the tight friction of his rim. His lungs seize as he’s opened up, his mouth gaping pathetically around a retort silenced by the wet pressure of Corpse’s shadows made solid. 

Knowing the limbs were part of Corpse - part of his body or his magic, however this worked - was profoundly unsettling, given the Demon’s complete composure as he sits on the altar Technoblade is about to get fucked on. Unlike Sykkuno, leant over the Demon’s shoulder to watch the King get spread open, Corpse’s attention is entirely focused on Technoblade’s face, not even bothering to look down as the King’s hole loosens up enough for the member to gently move back and forth, fucking further inside on each push. 

Self-satisfied half-smirk on his stupid face, Corpse calmly watches Technoblade stutter out threats as he slowly stretches him open, the constricting vice around the King’s cock squeezing in time with the other limb’s movements, drowning out any coherent thoughts in Technoblade’s head with which to assemble coherent threats. 

When the limb wrapped around Technoblade’s cock threads itself tighter, giving itself enough slack for the blunt end to press against the slit of his cockhead Technoblade keens, his head slipping down from his arm and thunking against the rock as his hips work futilely against his restraints. Corpse makes a derisive clicking noise as the dark cage around Technoblade’s cock tightens again, the rapid swelling of his swollen organ forcing it to expand. 

“Fuck, you’re still getting harder?” he asks, the sting of begrudging awe in his voice soothing Technoblade’s wounded pride. The King grins up at the dark ceiling for a second before the Demon notices and hisses, retaliating by expanding the limb buried in his hole. 

“Yeah, he’ll get a little bigger than that. He’s longer than you by quite a bit.” 

Unfortunately for Technoblade, Sykkuno’s remark only aggravates the petulant Demon. The heat in the King’s stomach twists as the limb inside him starts thrusting properly, his rim stinging with the stretch. Still, the opportunity to insult Corpse is too good to waste. 

“Feelin’ inadequate?” 

Technoblade forces a drawl, steadying his voice even he shudders at the wet thing writhing inside him, laving over his insides and hollowing him out. His spine sparks with the conflicting sensations of his cock being wrapped in a twisting vice and slowly pumped alongside the raw feeling of being stretched too quickly. He couldn’t quite call the latter pleasurable yet, though he’s quite certain Corpse’s shadows are frantically seeking out his prostate, desperate to reduce him to an incoherent and incapable mess. 

“Should watch that tongue, little King,” Corpse snaps, trailing the edges of his claws over the delicate skin of Technoblade’s inner thighs, leaving neat red lines in their wake. “End up talkin’ yourself into gettin’ your hole completely fuckin’ ruined.” 

“Oh, that reminds me,” Sykkuno gasps, slipping down from Corpse’s shoulder and disappearing out of Technoblade’s sightline. A garbled noise of concern makes it out of Technoblade’s slack mouth, craning his head up to find where the Mage went.

“The fuck d-does tha- _ah_ , mother _fucker_ , fu- _ah_ -fuck stop that!” Technoblade yowls when Corpse finds his prostate and immediately bears down on it, writhing and fucking mercilessly into the sensitive little gland while Technoblade cries out. The King tries to wrench his body away as suffocating fire ricochets up his spine, choking the air in his lungs and shorting out the few circuits in his brain still operational. 

“You found it! Good job, Corpse.”

Technoblade really wishes he’d beheaded the Mage when he’d had the chance. 

Fuck the axe. Nothing on this Earth nor all the planes of Oblivion was worth the trouble he’s going to have to go through to get vengeance for this little stunt. Technoblade is certain his pride won’t heal until he can rip the both of them in half, maybe even fuck one of them to death, and that is going to take so much _effort_. 

He doesn’t even know _what_ Corpse is.

But, the knowledge that if he can leave here with _Gelgtholath_ then he has a decent chance of ending the fucker saves Technoblade from dying of raw embarrassment when a particularly obscene moan breaks past his clenched jaw. The leer on the Demon’s face deepens, his claws digging into Technoblade’s thighs at the same time that the thick appendage inside him cruelly swipes over his prostate and Technoblade’s traitorous cock jerks, a pitiful spurt of precome spilling onto his abdomen. 

Fighting back a sob, Technoblade glares resolutely back into Corpse’s amused eyes and tries not to think about how the shadowy limb wound around his cock has stopped jacking him off. After the Demon found a way to make him whine without it, the vice held still, a constant pressure that he hopes won’t end up used to prevent him from coming. 

His staring contest is interrupted by the Mage dropping down beside him. Technoblade’s attention being wholly occupied with scowling at the Demon fucking him, he doesn’t notice Sykkuno until he’s taking up half of his vision, leaning over him with a smile and what looks like a paintbrush in his hand. 

“Hello there,” Sykkuno chirps, lowering the thick brush to Technoblade’s chest, trailing a broad swipe of red, shining in the torchlight. 

“This is sanctified blood. Your blood, actually,” he laughs, wrist turning delicately as he paints designs into Technoblade’s skin that the King can barely see even as he cranes his neck up to watch.

Apparently Corpse also gets distracted by Sykkuno, his thrusts gentling as his blank eyes watch the patterns appearing on Technoblade’s pale skin, and the King’s head finally begins to clear, regaining tentative control over his breathing. 

“Wha-what do you mean, _my_ blood?” he gasps, pushing his flushed cheek into his bicep to watch Sykkuno’s paintbrush trail over his abdomen in fluid strokes, the blood cooling his overheated skin. 

“Don’t worry, I didn’t take much and you’re big enough. Just enough for the basic runes, nothing fancy.”

Technoblade blinks up at the Mage, bewildered, but Sykkuno doesn’t notice, working his way over Technoblade’s left hip and up to his ribs. 

“He’s drawing sacrificial marks,” Corpse explains softly, “kinda the same as his summoning tattoos but not as intense.” The Demon’s attention seems to be wholly captured by Sykkuno, his low voice clearer than Technoblade had ever heard it. 

A saucer hovers beside the Mage’s wrist, nervously following the movements of his hand across Technoblade’s body, ready for its master to dab his brush into more of Technoblade’s blood and spread it across his skin. Technoblade would wonder whether he’d ever been covered in this much of his own blood without passing out, but the word ‘sacrificial’ is echoing in his head, bouncing around through the pleasure-dampened haze. 

“This altar is meant for cannibalistic sacrifices, but the intent behind the magic isn’t specific.” Corpse’s gaze shifts back over to the King, a sly twist to his dark mouth appearing at the lost expression he finds. “Fuck, Daedric isn’t a specific language anyway, so we can bend the rules a little. Taking something from you that you don’t wanna give qualifies.”

Sykkuno’s eyes blacken for a moment after he sets his brush down across the saucer and tips its contents onto Technoblade’s navel. Instead of watching a red column of half-coagulated blood cascading onto his stomach, Technoblade is greeted with a black syrup that electrifies his skin, cold static spiderwebbing across his torso. 

“Th-tha-that was _not_ blood!” he objects, the alien static sinking into his bones and immediately has to suppress his shivering to scowl up at the giggling Mage. 

“It used to be blood,” Sykkuno replies, waving away the empty saucer and spreading his fingers out on Technoblade’s chest. When the King raises his head to look over his ritualised skin, he sees that the markings shine in the torchlight like rivers, like Sykkuno had hollowed out his flesh and flooded them with blood. Even when one of his fingertips swipes across a rune, spreading a red stain out over Technoblade’s unmarred skin, the mark stays as wet as ever, replenished immediately. 

“The fuck did you do to me?” Technoblade breathes, focused on the marks buzzing in his skin, the pleasured fog chased out of his head by the inherent oddness of the static. 

“Don’t worry, it’s not permanent,” Sykkuno soothes, lifting his bloodied fingers to Technoblade’s forehead, pushing the King’s head back down to the rock and stroking through his hair. “Much as I’d like to put binding marks across your pretty shoulders, you haven’t done anything bad enough to deserve that.”

“Deserve? What d-did I-I- _ah fuck_ , mother _fuck_ ing Demon, you can’t just-just start pounding away when-whenever you- God- _fuck you_.” 

Corpse’s laughing burns in Technoblade’s ears, his eyes screwed shut as he strangles the noises that claw at his throat while the Demon’s infernal shadow-cock rudely shoves its way inside him, twisting and writhing slickly. The limb wrapped around his cock remains painfully still, holding him steady, refusing him even the friction against his own stomach as his hips jolt on each of the Demon’s thrusts. 

“Of course you don’t think you did anything wrong, mindless beast of a human,” Corpse sneers, but his tone isn’t half as cruel as it had been, and Technoblade hates the idea that the Demon could be softened by bringing him low, making him whine and shudder. “Threatening the Lady’s Divine Vessel, forcing your frustrated little pig cock inside him and grunting on top of him like a swine, fucki-” 

He cuts off into a low whine, the limb inside the King shuddering. When Technoblade forces one eye open, he’s greeted with the sight of Sykkuno naked and up on his knees, having freed himself from his trousers and leaning over Corpse’s shoulder to reach down between the Demon’s legs. He can’t see Sykkuno’s hand, but the way the muscles in his forearm flex is unmistakable, as is the expression on the Demon’s face. 

“Corpse has a point,” he smiles, tilting his head on the Demon’s shoulder to look sideways at the panting King. “You certainly weren’t going to let me alone if I refused you, were quite proud of the fact, weren’t you?” 

Sykkuno pushes away from Corpse’s shoulder, bringing his lewdly slick hand up between Technoblade’s spread legs and over his chest, resting it on his bloodied pectoral muscle as he swings his weight around to straddle the King’s hips. 

“So how can you complain if I do the same thing?” he asks, a sharp edge to his smile as he hovers just above Technoblade’s trapped cock, arching back to run his fingers through Corpse’s hair, pull the Demon’s head forwards to rest on his shoulder. 

“Fu-fuck that,” Technoblade hisses, breifly glancing down at the way Sykkuno’s heavy cock hangs between his spread thighs, overheated and likely sensitive from being trapepd in his trousers. 

“Can’t bring a hellspawn, _ngh_ with-with fuckin’ _shadow tentacles_ and a thing for callin’ me a pig to-to- _oh fuh_ -God-fuckin’ fuck me for you ‘cause your cock’s too small- and-and call it even... least I t-touched you, made you come when I-”

Technoblade gasps, words dying in his throat as Sykkuno lets go of Corpse to put his hands either side of Technoblade’s shoulders, dropping down to rest his forehead against the King’s crownless head. Dragging air into his lungs and trying not convert it into desperate whines as Corpse fucks him harder, the limb inside him impossibly big and pounding into his prostate, he glares weakly up into Sykkuno’s eyes.

The heat he finds in them chases a shudder down his spine, forces the uncomfortable realisation that Sykkuno can hear all the pathetic noises he’s making, can see the way his thighs try to twitch closed on each of Corpse’s particularly vicious thrusts, the way his fair eyelashes darken with tears. 

“But Corpse is touching you, isn’t he?” Sykkuno coos, lifting himself up slightly on his elbows to look down at where his cock is resting on Technoblade’s abdomen beside the shadow-caught mass of the King’s weeping cock. 

“You want me to touch you instead?” 

The whisper falls on blush-reddened ears, undercutting the furiously embarrassed mess in Technoblade’s head, bypassing all conscious thought to tease the desperate need for slick friction on his aching cock that sings in his dumb, ancient hindbrain. He can’t help but gasp wetly and shudder at the Mage’s offer before stomping down on the easily-manipulated, cock-drunk part of his brain and managing a weak growl in the back of his throat.

“I mean it,” Sykkuno insists. “There’s no point in pretending you’re not desperate for it. Doesn’t it hurt?” 

Hissing a shuddering breath through his clenched teeth quickly devolves into an unstifled moan, his jaw falling open as Corpse unwinds the limb around his cock. The shadow uncoils and slithers away, exposing his frustrated, sensitive skin to Sykkuno’s body heat and the slickness of his own blood on his stomach. 

“Just gotta ask for it,” Sykkuno simpers, still whispering across the pointed shell of his ear and Technoblade has to reconsider which of the men knelt over his spread legs is supposed to be the Demon. 

“Unless you want to come untouched on Corpse’s darkness. Show him how good he fucks you?”

Technoblade’s fists clench around nothing, yanking at the restraints around his wrists for a furious moment before Corpse abandons thrusting altogether, prehensile member curling up to mercilessly grind into his prostate and he loses control of his limbs and tongue. 

“God fuck _ing_ fuck, okay, please tou- please touch m-me, sit _-fuck_ -s-sit on my cock, let m-me- ah, show him how good you are at bouncin’ on it.” 

He gets an inhuman growl and a vicious return to being railed by a disembodied cock for his trouble. Sykkuno only sighs into his ear, lifting himself up to look down into the King’s pleasure-ruined features as he drops his hips down to lie flush against the body underneath him, soft thighs spreading open around Technoblade’s folded legs to lie flat against the rock. 

The mind-melting pressure of smooth skin against his tortured cock is enough to make the King yowl pathetically, rolling his hips as best he can against his restraints for the barest hint of friction. It’s soon ruined when Corpse’s legs knock against his own as he shuffles closer, clawed fingertips skirting over Sykkuno’s shoulder as he gently presses whatever monstrosity he has between his legs into the Mage’s hole. 

Technoblade can only look up in horror at the Demon’s smug face after Sykkuno dips his head down to whimper against the King’s neck, vanishing out of his field of vision and abandoning him to stare up at the unbearably delighted hellspawn. 

“This should be enough for you, little King,” Corpse sighs, expression tightening as he slowly fucks his way deeper inside the man laid over Technoblade’s upper body, pushing down on the dip in his spine, forcing a sharper arch to the Mage’s back and more stinging pressure against Technoblade’s cock. “Sensitive little cunt, close to spilling all over yourself anyway, should show you how to please Syk before you pass out, huh?”

“Cor- _fuh_ -Corpse,” Sykkuno groans into Technoblade’s ear, and the King has to fight the surge of shame that spreads through him, how the punched-out cry of another man’s name in Sykkuno’s honeyed voice sets the pit in his stomach on fire. It’s worse when Corpse suddenly falls forward, gruff moans falling out of his black mouth as Sykkuno opens up for him and he slides all the way inside, sheathing himself in Sykkuno’s trembling body.

Because Technoblade knows how good that feels. How barbarically satisfying Sykkuno feels on the inside, the soft flesh of his thighs and ass yielding against Technoblade’s, and now Corpse’s, abdomen. Unwelcome empathy sings though Technoblade’s chest as Corpse is reduced to a whimpering, wordless beast, dropping his weight down in brutish thrusts, shoving Sykkuno down against Technoblade’s hips. 

Technoblade isn’t sure if Corpse loses control of the limb inside his hole or finally getting inside Sykkuno deepens his grudge against Technoblade for having done it first. It shuddered in a exquisitely delicate way as Corpse split Sykkuno open, highlighting how far from a rigid cock it actually is as it expands while it’s still fucking, stretching Technoblade’s twitching rim open wider. 

Understandably, Technoblade finds himself distracted by the Demon pounding the tightest fucktoy he’d ever had the pleasure of folding in half down against his jealous, neglected cock, each progressively indelicate thrust driving blood-slick friction against the frustrated, pitiful thing. So distracted he doesn’t notice the mess of wounds Sykkuno is biting into his neck until a particularly vicious thrust from Corpse dislodges him, his fangs ripping free.

Apparently not content with covering Technoblade’s torso in his own blood, the Mage had set to destroying the column of the King’s throat, stifling his moans and curses into the skin trapped between the sharp teeth that, not long ago, had sweetly hovered over the shaft of the King’s cock in his wet mouth. 

“You remember biting a hole in my shoulder the first time you came inside me?” 

Technoblade whimpers as Sykkuno’s tongue laves over the wounds he’s left, his delicate mouth kissing wetly against his skin before whispering into his blood and spit-slick skin, voice low with pleasure.

“See, I know- _mnh_ , Gods- I know now you did that ‘cause you sound like a whore when you come,” Sykkuno giggles breathlessly, raising his head up to pant into Technoblade’s open mouth, to lick up the length of one of his tusks while the King fails to form curses with his slack tongue, choking on his own spit instead. 

He really can’t take this anymore. Can’t take Corpse fucking him with something that feels like it’s taking up all the space inside his body, stuffing him impossibly full and using him for its own pleasure, vindictively stabbing at the bundle of nerves inside him that force his back to arch whorishly and his cock to twitch impotently on his stomach. 

Even if he can’t see it, It’s so much worse to know the Demon is fucking Sykkuno at the same time. Taking something that belonged to Technoblade and rubbing his face in it, literally rubbing his enviously-throbbing cock in the fact that the sweet little Mage will spread his legs for the Demon just as easily as he would for the King. 

“Why don’t you come for me,” Sykkuno hums into his mouth, a cruel spark in his lust-blown eyes, “let Corpse hear how you sound.”

Technoblade doesn’t think he’s ever going to breathe again. His chest feels like it’s collapsing in on itself, his throat closing up as his spine arches and his legs spread wider, like he’s subconsciously begging for Corpse to fuck him harder. 

He might _actually_ be begging Corpse to fuck him harder, he realises, with the little air left in his lungs. Whimpering into Sykkuno’s mouth apparently is still loud enough for the Demon to hear, and convincing enough for him to grant the King his plea. After that, Technoblade is definitely sure there’s air in his lungs because it’s being used to howl and cry as his cock spills come across the blood-runes in his skin, his spine buzzing with what is either the Daedric magic in his skin or his prostate being abused by Daedric shadows made solid.

He can’t keep his eyes open as he comes, as much as he’s in love with the look on Sykkuno’s face. Tears blur his vision before he screws his eyes shut as his spine contorts and shoves his head back into the rock, his jaw tight and locked open as he screams. 

In another unnecessary blow to his ego, he has to beg for Corpse to stop fucking him into oversensitivity, the inescapable stinging fire that spreads through his stomach quickly persuading Technoblade to abandon whatever dignity he has left just to make it stop. 

After that, he mostly focuses on just existing.

Holding on to fragile constructs such as his name and how the pommel of a sword feels in his hands soaks up all the concentration left in his fucked-out mind. Time slips by in an indefinite haze while he struggles to keep enough air in his starved lungs, punctuated by Sykkuno’s whispered praises and kisses across his forehead. Technoblade faintly realises the unending fog in his head might be due to the way Sykkuno is still being fucked mercilessly on top of him, the mess of blood, come and sweat trapped between their stomachs slicking the friction of his skin as Corpse drags him back and forth. 

Regardless of why, the fugue dims his thoughts down until they’re nothing but the sensations on his skin. Technoblade floats in his own head for a while, limbs still tied down with no choice but to take what he’s given. A sense of inevitability hangs over the few conscious thoughts that survive the fog, the vague recognition that a mortal trapped under the whims of Gods needn’t worry about his own choices. 

Mostly, he feels owned.

It might be whatever magic is threaded through the rock altar, singing with delight at the runes carved into his chest, buzzing in his ears with something ancient and demanding. Could also be that Corpse is still inside him, solid shadows pulsing gently on each of his thrusts, the dark magic in their blurred edges seeping inside him, violating and claiming his insides for the Demon’s pleasure. Or it could be Sykkuno’s pleasure-garbled words that are moaned into his mouth as Corpse fucks him, promises of crafting a heavy silver collar for Technoblade’s throat, of delicate enchanted chains to keep him tethered to the Mage’s bed. To craft as many world-ending weapons as Technoblade can dream of, so long as he comes back blood-soaked to kneel at the Mage’s feet. 

He isn’t sure, but when Sykkuno comes, pumping come into the hopeless puddle between their bodies and sinking his fangs into Technoblade’s bottom lip, curse-blackened tongue catching yet more of Technoblade’s spilt blood, he feels like he’s served some divine purpose. 

However, Technoblade soon finds serving divine purposes to be awfully demanding, as Corpse drapes himself over Sykkuno’s back, pressing open-mouthed kisses into the Mage’s overheated skin while his black eyes drill into Technoblade’s half-lidded ones with a manic intensity. 

“Syk,” the Demon whines against the Mage’s shounder, rolling his hips down into the spent Mage’s body and driving another string of guttural moans into Technoblade’s neck. “I can’t- can’t st- I-I-I gotta …”

Corpse trails off into an open-mouthed growl as Sykkuno raises his head and arches against the Demon at his back. From the lazy smile playing at Sykkuno’s kiss-bruised lips, Technoblade supposes he’s clenching down on Corpse’s cock.

“Oh, you wanna fuck Technoblade.” Sykkuno hums through his teeth, wrapping a hand around one of Corpse’s horns to guide the Demon’s head up, to let the Mage enough room to pull free of his cock. 

“Bet his hole is open and wet enough,” Sykkuno hisses, pushing up onto his knees and rocking forwards gently, fat drops of oil falling from Corpse’s wet cock and over Technoblade’s thighs and balls, the skin buzzing faintly where they land. “Plus he’s weird about come, would probably hate it if you spilled inside him.”

Technoblade blinks, the haze in his head clearing sharply. Sykkuno is grinning down at him, an exhausted flush over his pale skin that Technoblade sorely misses when the Mage rolls off of his chest to flop down beside him and he’s left with the half-crazed Demon kneeling between his bound legs. 

Craning his head up even as the tired muscles in his neck protest, Technoblade grimaces as he notices the shape of the Demon’s cock. 

It looks violent. 

The pitch-dark and oil-slick head was almost sharp, the underside jutting out in a harsh flare that echoed down the shaft, progressively gentler ribs sticking out of the sides as the colour faded back into the grey-pale of his abdomen. Smaller bumps lined the underside, two neat rows of raised black either side of the thick blood vessel. Technoblade thought he saw silvery-clear precome dripping down from the blackened head, but his vision was quickly blocked by Corpse’s hand as the Demon pressed his aching cock against his own stomach. 

The King is quickly dragged down the rock by his hips, the jagged surface scraping his back raw until his ass hangs over the edge, delicately counterbalanced by the Demon’s hands folding the King’s legs down and against his chest. 

“Wa-wa-wait just a fuckin’ second, is Daedric cock even safe for humans? Your come isn’t gonna dissolve my insides is it?” Technoblade hisses, warily eyeing the raised edges of black flesh hiding behind Corpse’s fingers. The Demon ignores him, hurriedly yanking the solid-shadow limb from Technoblade’s hole and lining his actual cock up with the gaping rim.

The foreign and thoroughly uncomfortable feeling of emptiness as his asshole shudders and contracts around thin air is quickly replaced by panicked confusion as Corpse presses a cockhead which is somehow much thicker than the limb he’d been fucked with. 

The thing had felt ridiculously oversized inside him, Technoblade being half convinced it was as wide as his fist, but as Corpse forces his way past the resistance of Technoblade’s abused rim, all coherent thought melts from the King’s mind.

Now, he was definitely stuffed too full. Whenever Corpse finally bottoms out Technoblade is certain he’ll be able to see the bulge of his cock through his stomach, but for now all he can do is sob and moan as he’s split open on each tortuous ridge of the Demon’s cock. 

“He designed his own body, holds it together with magic,” Sykkuno’s voice drifts into his ear and Technoblade shudders at the lucidity in it, how articulate the Mage is while Technoblade is an incoherent mess getting split open on yet another part of Corpse’s body. Apparently having rolled onto his stomach, he props his chin up on one of Technoblade’s triceps to murmur unwanted advice into the King’s ear. “If he wanted, he could make any one of his bodily fluids corrosive, so you might want to hold still and avoid pissing him off.”

“N- _ngh_ -not like I can do any other fuckin’ thing than hol-holdin’ still.” 

“You could try _relaxin’_ ,” groans Corpse, the curls of his black hair plastered to his forehead with sweat as he gingerly rocks his hips back and forth, fucking Technoblade open on the thicker base of his cock. “Namira fuckin’ damn you, son of a _Kazgol_ whore, you’re tight.”

Technoblade thinks he might actually die as Corpse grinds himself all the way inside. If not from the feeling of being stretched open and stuffed full of rigid Daedric cock then of sheer embarrassment when Corpse rolls the sensitive skin of his balls in one hand as he fucks short little thrusts as deep inside Technoblade as he can get. If feels like Corpse shoved a fist into his chest and crushed his soul, and Technoblade can’t help the pathetic groan that claws its way out of his slack jaw. 

“Much too fuckin’ tight, ’m not gonna last,” Corpse laments, dragging his hips back in a smooth motion before snapping them back and obliterating the sting on Technoblade’s tongue about old demons and premature ejaculation. There’s a grace to how his abdominal muscles flex, his torso snaking with the sharp movements of his hips that make Technoblade think that the force he’s putting into his thrusts is demonic rather than wrought purely by muscle and sinew.

That and it feels like the Demon wants to pulverise Technoblade’s joints with how brutally he’s fucking, driving Technoblade’s aching thighs apart by his restraints and grinding his hips into the rock, the claws on his thumbs slicing into the still-electrified skin on his stomach. 

“Syk- y-your handwriting is s-so pretty,” he groans, his head hanging between his shoulders. “Even on a-a-a boar’s hide, looks so good covered in his own blood and come. Sh-should write him binding marks an-and let me cut off his arms, let me cut out his eyes and skullfuck the sockets.” 

Frantic threads through the Demon’s lust-thick rambling, his black eyes half-lidded but focused on the King’s blood under his thumbs and Technoblade knocks his head into Sykkuno’s trying turn around and wordlessly ask whether he was going to survive being this Demon’s chew toy. 

“Don’t worry, your Majesty,” Sykkuno chuckles into Technoblade’s hair, pushing the King’s head back to the rock and ghosting kisses over his temples. “Binding marks would make you effectively immortal, so long as I still want to keep you. Doesn’t mean it won’t hurt though.” 

“Fu-fuck tha- _ah_ -that, sick motherfu- _fuck_ -ck-cker,” Technoblade stutters, moans jostled out of him on each of Corpse’s frantic shallow thrusts until the Demon suddenly falls still and pulls out. An incoherent noise of alarm bubbles up from his throat and gets elongated into a whine of complaint as the bindings holding his wrists to the rock suddenly yank him sideways. 

Corpse hauls him backwards by his legs at the same time as his upper body is dragged to the right, spinning him sideways and dragging him over the edge of the altar until his shoulders hit the floor. His spine is bent serpentine, with his hips still on the altar, still with the Demon’s clawed grip around his thighs. But now he’s looking up at Corpse aligning his cock and shoving in, preventing him from falling the rest of the way down by yanking his hips back on his thrusts. 

Technoblade’s cock is bouncing against his stomach now. Heavy and sticky with both his and Sykkuno’s come, smacking wetly onto his skin with each of Corpse’s rabbiting thrusts and it feels like he’s going to explode out of his skin if he doesn’t get some kind of proper friction on it. 

When Sykkuno’s head appears over Corpse’s shoulder, Technoblade isn’t above pleading for the Mage to touch him, brought far too low on the Demon’s cock to care. Instead of Sykkuno’s slender but calloused fingers, he gets Corpse’s hand. 

Apparently still able to fuck him in such a precarious position with just one hand on his thigh, Corpse grinds Technoblade’s cock into the slick heat of his own stomach. The heel of his hand slowly sliding up the underside while he uses that grip to push Technoblade’s stomach back onto his cock, like he could feel himself through Technoblade’s muscles.

The King gets a little stuck on that thought as he whimpers and comes, bent like a fucktoy over the edge of the rock. That Corpse could abandon all pretenses and shove the rest of Technoblade’s body off the altar, only keep the part he needed to rut inside. Could make Technoblade come over his own chest and neck by barely touching his cock and and Technoblade couldn’t do anything to stop him. 

It hurts to come again, unending liquid fire burning through his cock as the Demon fucks him through it, the ridges of his infernal cock scraping over his prostate with all the force that the pissed-off Demon can gather. The last conscious thoughts in the King’s head worry over whether his orgasm will ever stop, or he’ll be stuck, oversensitive and crying until Corpse satisfies himself.

\--

There are voices, quiet and calm, somewhere behind him. 

Wordless and indistinct, humming in his ear.

It doesn’t bother him half as much as he expects it to as he gradually pulls his mind together, the fragments of his consciousness lazy and warm where they lie scattered, disconnected. Like that, slowly, his awareness is dragged though the syrup of dreamless sleep and back into his body.

But awareness brings a foreboding, dull ache in his bones. One that warns him an awful, inexorable pain will follow his movements, whenever he gets control over his muscles again. It pulls him back down into sleep for a while, persuading him that it’s best to doze until the ache goes away, no point in being awake for it. 

The voices are still there when he finally twists himself out of that lethargic haze, as is the bone-deep ache. 

While Technoblade slowly comes to terms with the fact that whatever he did to his body he won’t be able to sleep it off, the voices quieten, their pleasant hum falling away. Only the dim crackling of a hearth fills Technoblade’s slowly waking ears. 

Rather, the ear that isn't pressed into his pillow. 

Suspicious, Technoblade forces his eyes open, blinking rapidly until the world is pulled into focus. His eyelashes flutter against what he immediately recognises as Sykkuno’s stomach. 

All he can see is pale, tattooed skin along with his own arm, wrapped around the Mage’s hips. A hoarse grumble accompanies the delicate raising of the King’s head, pitching higher into a whine as he pushes himself up to turn and face the Mage, the muscles in his arms deadened and numb. 

He lands heavily on the soft pillow of Mage, torso twisted awkwardly to keep his stomach flat to the bed, and Sykkuno laughs above him, the faint muscles of his abdomen contracting under Technoblade’s cheek. 

Tired, red eyes wander up the flushed planes of Sykkuno’s chest and up, over to the pile of black pillows behind him and the familiar dark shelves of Sykkuno’s bedroom. Cool, slender fingers run though Technoblade’s mane of peach-pink hair, untangling it from where it had wound around his neck as he turned and gently scratching over his scalp. 

“How’re you feeling?” Sykkuno asks softly, a tender expression on his pretty face, and Technoblade’s chest aches to look at it, to have the Mage’s honeyed voice ask after him. “You slept for so long we were worried you’d been caught up in one of Vaermina’s Dreamstrides and I’d have to go bargain for your soul.” 

The Daedric nonsense washes through Technoblade’s drowsy mind as he refuses to waste the energy needed to understand it, but he gets stuck on a word he does know. 

“We?” he asks and then immediately regrets doing so. Even before the syllable has left his mouth, Technoblade realises who the ‘we’ refers to. Gingerly, he twists his shoulders around again to get his arms underneath him and push up onto his elbows, chin resting on the Mage’s chuckling abdomen to glare up at the Demon leaning against the bedpost. 

“ _Both_ of you were worried, huh?” he asks, voice strained by the angle of his throat but the tone of disbelief still makes it through. Corpse’s dark mouth stretches into a smile, his forearms resting on the upper frame, his dark figure eclipsing the hearthlight. 

“Yes, little King, _both_. What’s the use of teaching you a lesson if you go and die on us immediately afterwards?” 

There’s an arrogance on his features that begs Technoblade to drag a blade through them, but, mostly, it’s the fact that the Demon is fully dressed in the confusingly overlapping layers of his cloak and tunic. He presents an infuriating contrast with Technoblade’s aching and naked body, particularly the slickness between his legs that the King refuses to pay any mind. 

“No point either way, since your ‘lesson’ was bullshit,” he hisses, dragging his numb limbs into a sitting position. The black duvet falls around his legs, cooler air rushing over his sleep-warm skin and he scowls at Sykkuno’s quiet mumble of concern when he jerks in pain as he puts too much weight onto his mistreated ass. “Only thing I learned from that was how well motivated I get to hunt a Demon down and kill him in the mud like a dog.”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Corpse chuckles, unfolding his legs and rolling off the edge of the bed. “Don’t go huntin’ me down too soon though, should let your very impressive human healing get you into walkin’ condition first.”

Technoblade’s fingers twist in the black sheets, glaring as Corpse opens up a black, howling rift with a drag of his index finger through the air. The Demon hesitates at the rift’s edge, throwing one last insult over his shoulder like a petulant child. “Or, ask Sykkuno to speed things along, bet he’d help if you beg real sweet, you’re good at that.” 

The rift sews itself back together with an awful snapping sound. 

“I’ll trade you,” Sykkuno chirps, dragging Technoblade’s murderous but also exhausted attention over to the poorly concealed amusement on the Mage’s face. “One portal to where he just went if you let me ride you again.” 


End file.
